


Those Who Favor Fire

by The_A_I



Series: Fire and Ice [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Mass Effect - All Media Types
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Character Death, Comic Book Science, F/M, Gen, M/M, Mass Effect Spoilers, Multi, POV Alternating, POV Female Character, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Endgame, Post-Spider-Man: Far From Home, Pre-Mass Effect, S.W.O.R.D., Science Fiction & Fantasy, Spider-Man: Far From Home (Movie) Spoilers, The Peak VII (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:47:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 20
Words: 134,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23840308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_A_I/pseuds/The_A_I
Summary: In a universe reeling from the aftermath of the Blip, a newly resurrected Isabelle Collins is shattered by her brother’s death and does all she can to avoid the nightmares that haunt her.But the discovery of remains of a forgotten civilization on Mars is just one sign that foreshadows an undeniable truth - Thanos was just the harbinger of something much worse.The pieces are there, all over the galaxy. In order to ensure her brother’s sacrifice wasn’t in vain, Isabelle must uncover secrets and fight monsters billions of years old to complete the puzzle.Because this time, the stakes are much higher than just half of all life.A Marvel Cinematic Universe/Mass Effect crossover fanfiction, or - as I like to refer to it - MCUleadinginto ME.
Relationships: Canon Relationships - Relationship, James "Rhodey" Rhodes/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Fire and Ice [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1717873
Comments: 3
Kudos: 6
Collections: Discord Community Archive





	1. Prologue: For Now I Bear the Weight Alone

**Author's Note:**

> To tell the truth… Endgame broke me.
> 
> I couldn’t get it out of my head, and not just because there are characters that I will never see again, or because all endings, no matter how happy, are sad.
> 
> No, Endgame broke my _brain._
> 
> Because - and this is my opinion alone, do _not_ lynch me - Endgame is like swiss cheese; full of holes.
> 
> Listing them out here would be redundant as I am already addressing them in the fic. But there were all these loose, fraying threads of the plot just dangling in the air, and here I am, trying to understand _why? Why am I so obsessed? Why can’t I let go?_
> 
> Took me four months to realize that it was unhealthy, poisonous.
> 
> So that’s what this is… _therapy._
> 
> I am attempting to fix what is broken - in me _and_ in MCU. And this has been done before, but I’m doing it in a different way, by plugging the holes with bits from another fandom that I adore, and that has just as many plot holes - Mass Effect.
> 
> The two fandoms mesh surprisingly well. And I love crossover fanfictions; I’ve attempted to write a few before, but never got them done for various reasons.
> 
> But this one - I’m planning on finishing.
> 
> Technically, I’m involving four fandoms in this - MCU, Mass Effect, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and bits from the comics. Only events of MCU until Phase 3 actually need to be known… this is a _discovery fic_ ; the world of Mass Effect will slowly open to the characters, as it will open to the readers. I will be providing context for Mass Effect and the comics, highlight the differences between my canon and the fic.
> 
> Anything beyond Phase 3 is not considered canon for this fic.
> 
> It’s going to be gradual, progressive… _long_. I don’t know how many chapters yet, but the first story does span thirty years. And yes, there will be a sequel.
> 
> I’m also using the canon established in Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. The show and the characters will feature heavily in this fic, which takes the events up to only the Season 4 finale as canon. After that, the timeline shifts drastically. Knowledge, unfortunately, is definitely required. My excuse is that consider the events of Agents of SHIELD as canon, even though neither Marvel Television nor Disney actually considers it as such.
> 
> Probably the most important note of all: My protagonist is an OC.
> 
> I tried without one, believe me - but to combine the two fandoms in a way that made sense without breaking the story, I had to create an OC. Couldn’t use an existing character to bridge the gap; it just didn’t work.
> 
> If everything works well, I’ll be updating weekly - I’ve got a lot of buffer chapters. I’m open to feedback and constructive criticism, so please feel free to leave comments; I will be replying to those.
> 
> Additional content warnings will be specified on a chapter-by-chapter basis. Tags will also be updated similarly to avoid spoilers.
> 
> Many thanks to my beta reader, ElessarII, who's been absolutely patient dealing with my crippling insecurity while posting a story for the first time. Without you, _mellon_ , this fic would've been nothing but a distant dream.
> 
> Disclaimer: The following is a work of fanfiction using characters from Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel Comics, and Mass Effect. I do not claim any ownership over the characters present in this piece as they are owned by Marvel Studios, Marvel Comics, Marvel Television, and Bioware.

* * *

_Hail thou! who on my birth bestowed_

_Those boons to all that know thee known;_

_Yet better I sustain thy load,_

_For now I bear the weight alone._

\- To Time, Lord Byron

* * *

###  **October 20th, 2023**

**Stark Residence**

**Georgia, Atlanta**

Isabelle doesn’t know how long she keeps her eyes on the wreath, as it drifts further and further away with each gentle lap of the waves. She can barely make out the flowers she and Pepper had chosen from the garden - lilies and carnations and chrysanthemums framing the arc reactor; _his very first_ \- and soon enough, they would disappear altogether.

She could probably kneel and let the water run through her fingers, and then she’d be able to pinpoint with faultless accuracy exactly how far the wreath was from the shore. She could even direct the waves gently lapping against the flowers to bring it back, back into her palms, back into safety.

She doesn’t give in to the temptation. 

“Isabelle,” an achingly familiar voice murmurs, right behind her. A voice she has heard only in dreams, and not even those in the past couple of decades.

She turns, and there she stands - Janet Van Dyne, _Aunt Jan_ \- a lot older, with deep laugh lines etched across her face - though where she found the inclination to laugh in the Quantum Realm where she has been trapped these past three decades is anybody’s guess.

“I see you’re not dead anymore,” Isabelle blurts, suppressing the automatic, involuntary flinch that rises at that word, that dreaded word, the worst word in the world.

No. Not the worst word. The worst word would be _alone_ , now, wouldn’t it?

Aunt Jan gently places her hands on her shoulders and pulls her in. She goes willingly enough, feeling more like and more like a hollow log of wood than a human being. 

The embrace feels like a cold coffin.

Isabelle draws back, retreating into the isolation of the air. She can’t stand Jan’s touch any longer, so she pulls away completely, taking a step backward.

Jan seems to understand if her saddened smile is anything to go by. “And I see you’re still not a hugger.”

She can’t bear to return the smile, so she nods and lets her eyes rove over the others. Cranky old Hank, with his temper and his irrational dislike of all Starks; including her, she remembers suddenly. 

The fact that she had been their goddaughter hadn’t lessened the sting of the fact that she was also Howard’s firstborn, not in his eyes. She hasn’t seen him in almost as long as Aunt Jan.

Scott Lang - the guy whose name she recalls only because he had been somehow instrumental in bringing back the half of the Universe wiped out by Thanos. Which included her. 

She should be grateful.

She’s not.

Beside Lang is Hope, whom she’d seen two years ago during the debacle with the Accords. The woman had publicly condemned Lang for his actions at Leipzig. Though judging from their tightly clasped hands, they have moved past that.

“You two know each other?” Lang asks.

Jan turns to him with a confused frown. “Of course we do - I’m her godmother.”

“And her Supervising Officer at S.H.I.E.L.D,” Hope says with a small smile.

His mouth drops open, and he turns to glare at Hank. “You always told me Starks couldn’t be trusted,” he exclaims and then flushes bright red in mortification.

Isabelle isn’t insulted by Hank’s supposed declaration - he’d said that and far worse to both her and Howard the few times their paths had crossed. And nor is she surprised at his protégé’s indecorous statement. 

She had established long ago that Scott Lang was a bit of a moron.

“I’ve been trying to make him ignore Dad’s prejudices,” Hope mumbles. “It hasn’t been working so well. Though maybe now he’ll get his head out of his ass, considering none of us would be here if not for -,” and she breaks off, but the damage is already done.

It is like getting hit by a truck. It sends her mind reeling, and she takes a half-step backward, struggling to gather her splintered thoughts.

There is an awkward pause, in which none of them know where to look or what to say. While she had been close to the Pyms as a child, all that changed when Hank had elected to become a reclusive old coot in the wake of Jan’s disappearance. 

She can’t blame him.

She feels a similar urge to get out of this place, this home that Tony had built for his tiny family; and right now packed with people who had been nothing but cruel to him in life, who had hurt him and destroyed him, both personally and professionally.

She counts herself as the worst among them.

“Never listen to an old curmudgeon with a grudge, Scott,” Jan says, and the effort is too little, too late and they all know it. But it breaks that awful, awkward silence, and Isabelle is already murmuring apologies and promises she has no intention of keeping even as she withdraws from the Pyms’ circle.

Out on the front porch of the cottage, Happy is sitting next to _her_ , his head bent low, face lined with grief and age. Isabelle’s feet automatically carry her over to a nearby tree from where she could eavesdrop easily, and she catches the last strains of his conversation with the child.

“ _I’ll get you all the cheeseburgers you want._ ”

It is simultaneously the best thing and the worst thing she could’ve heard. Because she can echo Happy’s sense of loss as he says that, because she knows what he’s referring to, what he’s thinking of, and she would’ve crumpled right there… 

… if the child hadn’t looked up just then and met her eyes. 

Isabelle draws in a sharp, shocked breath, her heart thudding in her ears. A week ago, by her perspective, that child hadn’t existed. She had known Tony was thinking of children, of legacies - but that’s all they were, thoughts, without form, without substance.

That child - _Morgan,_ she had a _name_ \- represents everything that Isabelle doesn’t want to think about. The five years she’d lost to oblivion, the brown eyes her own shirk away from instinctively.

She is an _aunt_. _Sister-in-law_ alone had been an adjustment, even though she’d been ecstatic when they’d finally announced the engagement.

Those familiar eyes set in a face so utterly alien are enough to send her reeling. She had been wrong - it isn’t better, being next to them, the ones who had loved Tony the most - because all they remind her of is _him._

She stumbles away, retreating deeper into the woods, but groans into her fist when she hears voices emerging from the shadows.

“The offer’s on the table, Barton,” Nick Fury murmurs. “S.H.I.E.L.D. could use good people like you.”

Clint Barton snorts. “Yeah, I met the Director a few years ago. I don’t think he’d appreciate me _punching his face in_ every time he so much as opens his mouth.”

“He was just following orders.”

“Yeah, _yours_ \- and now you got the balls to come and ask me to work for you again? After everything - after how you _lied_ to us? Yeah, that ain’t happening.”

Fury shrugs, unperturbed. “What _are_ you gonna do, then?”

Isabelle is under no illusions that even at her quietest, she can escape the combined eyesight of Hawkeye and Nick Fury. But they don’t acknowledge her, even when twigs and dead leaves crackle loudly beneath her feet as she slips away.

It won’t be long, now, she reminds herself. This will all be over soon, one way, or another.

Peace seems to be eluding her today, however, because the last person she wants to face right now is sitting on a camp chair at the edge of the lake, his head held in his arms.

Her heart lurches in time with her feet, and she’s torn between fleeing and approaching him when he takes the decision right out of her hands and looks up.

Rhodey’s eyes lock onto hers. 

His agony is raw, exposed, as though someone has scraped through his wounds with a blunt knife. It’s exactly why she has been doing her best to avoid him since the Battle - her own emotions have been programmed into responding whenever he’s in pain. 

She had known she was being immensely selfish, especially after what he went through during the Decimation, but her own grief had pulled her in so completely, she didn’t think she could help him with his own.

But now she’s met his eyes - a well of dark-brown - her feet instinctively answer his silent cry.

Her husband buries his face in her stomach. His grip on her hips borders on painful, but she welcomes it - it grounds her, the physical ache, unlike the internal anguish that seems like it’ll tear her off the surface of the world. 

Her own fingers curl into his shirt, and she holds on just as tightly. She doesn’t know if it’s helping - she doesn’t know anything anymore, even though there had been a time when she’d known him better than she’d known herself.

But he had become different in those five years she’d been scattered into atoms. He is _older_ than her now.

And there are parts of him she no longer recognizes.

He seems to sense that and withdraws. His eyes search her face, but whatever he’s looking for, he doesn’t seem to find it. He nods slightly and rises. 

The whir of his leg braces distract her, so she doesn’t realize what he’s planning until his lips press against her temple.

His touch scorches, and all of a sudden it’s too much, it’s _too much_ , and she stumbles backward. His hands hover, horror and self-loathing widening his eyes, but she can’t see that in him - not the misunderstanding that she’s somehow revolted by _him._

Not that. Never that.

“I’m sorry,” she rasps. “It’s not…” she can’t finish the clichéd excuse. “I… I just _can’t_.”

He nods, horror bleeding away into confusion, as though he doesn’t know her any more than she knows him. It doesn’t make her feel any better. “Okay,” he says, swallowing. “Okay… I’ll, I’ll just go.”

She can’t do much more than nod and whisper yet another apology as he walks away.

When he’s gone, she kneels next to the lake and runs her fingers through the water until they stop trembling. She runs a wet hand down her face and makes her way to the entrance of the cottage. The driveway is packed with cars, and all the mourners are still at the back of the house, but it won’t stay that way for long.

Isabelle thinks of the watch weighing down her overcoat, the miracle that her brother had created when hoping for one hadn’t proved fruitful enough. 

The watch that she’d slipped from the dead Nebula’s wrist when everyone else had been too consumed with the contradicting emotions of joy and grief.

She imagines running her fingers across its smooth surface, turning the tiny knobs, disappearing to a time and place of her choosing, away from the pain of tomorrow to the escape of yesterday.

She closes her eyes and leans her head on the wood, steeling herself against the memory of those _in the now_ , her loved ones, waiting for her. They’ll never forgive her for the choice that she’s about to make. 

She’s always known that her brother was the selfless one, and she’s been afraid of that truth her whole life - not for _him_ , no… she doesn’t even have it in herself to be charitable in regards to that - because she’d always known that one day, he’d leave her alone.

And Isabelle hates him for that. For trading his life for hers, as though it shouldn’t have been the other way around.

And she can’t… she can’t go back to the family that is more his than hers, because they’re all just pieces of a puzzle that will never be completed.

They’d be better off.

She’s just about to turn the knob when Stephen Strange steps behind her.

She doesn’t turn, doesn’t acknowledge him in any way. She barely knows him - the first time she met him was three days ago, when she had woken up disoriented on a too-grassy battlefield and was greeted by the sight of a wizard standing in front of a portal made of sparks, his cape fluttering behind him.

But she’s heard enough about him. From Pepper, from Banner, from Peter even. Enough to fill in the gaps. Enough to realize what he’d done.

“Time is fickle,” he says, and she freezes. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see that he’s not actually facing her - he’s addressing his words to the driveway. “Looking into the past - or the future - is very different from _traveling_ there. You think it’s the same - they’re the same people, with the same relationships - but it’s not. It never can be.”

She says nothing, the pads of her fingers white against the knob.

“It really was the only way,” he sighs. “I looked at fourteen million six hundred and five possibilities.”

She has heard this too. Of how he had looked to all the different futures to figure out how to defeat Thanos. 

The only one where they win is the one where Tony sacrifices himself.

Much to Howard’s consternation, his firstborn had never been a scientist or an intellectual in any field he respected. But she understands this about probabilities - even with those odds, there were still _thousands_ of futures where they could’ve won another way.

“You should’ve looked at more,” she replies.

“It would’ve killed me.”

“Then you should’ve let it.” She feels nothing when she says this, no guilt, no shame. 

He inhales a deep, shuddering breath.

“Thanos was only one threat, of many…” he tries.

The lock clicks open as she twists the knob, uninterested in his explanations - excuses - of how _he’s_ more crucial to the existence of the universe than Iron Man himself. There is little he could say to convince her.

“Isabelle…” he tries, and she wants to strike her name off his lips; he doesn’t deserve the intimacy of it. As though they were friends, rather than brief colleagues, and now, strangers with a river of animosity between them that neither could cross.

She’s already stepped inside, coldly furious when he continues.

“ _Tony Stark’s story is not yet finished.”_

She stumbles to a halt, and whirls around so fast her head spins. “What did you just...?” she starts, but he just isn’t there anymore. 

Where Stephen Strange stood just moments before, trying his level best to reach her, for the absolution she could not, _would not_ grant him, there is nothing but an empty porch, with not even a sign of a portal that could explain his disappearance.

She doesn’t step forward, doesn’t search the premises, because she knows somewhere deep in her gut that he’s gone somewhere she won’t find him. Somewhere she can’t reach to shake the answers out of him.

She feels loose, unsteady on her feet and in her mind, as though all the thoughts she had kept so carefully tamed and contained had broken free of their invisible chains. Her skin bursts into goosebumps at an invisible wind. 

What had Fury once said to Romanoff?

_No matter who wins or loses, trouble always comes around._

* * *

Isabelle stares at the helmet resting innocuously on the desk for an hour before she finds the courage to activate the recording.

His hologram pops into existence, right in front of her. He is silent for a long time, staring at her, his eyes tracking her, even though she knows that it’s just a hologram with a semi-advanced AI guiding it, an AI he has built for this alone.

“ _Izzy,_ ” he says, soft and sad, “ _if you’re watching this, I’m - well, you know._ ”

“ _It’s the 16th of October, and we’re as prepared as we’re ever going to be. I’ve been making these on the side for everyone, and I know the others have been as well, in their own way. I’m pretty sure Rogers has been writing letters with a pad and pencil_ ,” he scoffs, and his voice is, inexplicably, fond and exasperated.

It’s getting colder. She can feel her insides freezing up. 

“ _We’ve planned this to the last detail, but plans rarely survive contact with the enemy. Even though the enemy has been dead for five years,_ ” he mutters darkly _. “All of us have our own missions, our own plans, but Rhodey and Nebula are going to be taking the most risk. Sorry about that_ ,” he says. 

Isabelle leans against a wall, her limbs incredibly heavy.

“ _I know you worry, but honestly - he’s been more reliable these past five years than all of us put together. The first few weeks after Thanos were… I’ve never seen him like that. I don’t_ want _to see him that way again._ ”

“ _He never gave up hope. Not once. He threw every conceivable idea at me, no matter how bizarre it was. Time travel was one of the more out-there ideas. But apparently, according to Barton and Lang, it works.”_

“ _Anyway, I’m rambling. But - it's been so long since I just talked to you and now that I know that we’re so close, it’s like I can’t stop,_ ” he says, and then his lip trembles. “ _There’s so much I want to say, but that’s not the point of this. This is more for a worst-case scenario kind of situation._ ”

“ _No, not the worst. The worst would be that we failed, and I refuse to believe that,_ ” he says fiercely. “ _We didn’t come so far just to lose._ ”

“ _I’m just sorry it took so long,_ ” he murmurs, inhaling deeply. “ _And I’m sorry I left you alone._ ”

It plays in her mind yet again - finding him slumped against the rubble of the Compound, half his body charred under the combined might of six Infinity Stones, his eyes lightless. Nausea churns in her gut, and she brings a hand to her mouth.

The hologram shudders out a breath. “ _But now, for the fun stuff. J.O.C.A.S.T.A. has been coded to your voiceprint; I've already wired her up at the Mansion. DUM-E and U will be with Pepper, as will F.R.I.D.A.Y.; she’s too integrated with the armors for anyone besides me to be able to pull her out now._ _I’ve also made arrangements for E.D.I.T.H. to be sent to the kid.”_

“ _T.A.D.A.S.H.I. is for Morgan. She adores Aquamarine, by the way - she has heard enough stories from her old man to firmly acknowledge that you’re her favorite superhero,_ ” he smirks. “ _Good luck keeping up with those expectations._ ”

“ _Speaking of superheroes - and armors - don’t let anyone have them. Nobody else can access them, anyway; I’ve made sure of that. But if someone does try to - well, pull out a clean slate…”_

Out of the corner of her eye, Isabelle tracks a faint movement, and her hand snaps out, trembling fingers brushing against the metallic jawline of the helmet, cutting off Tony’s hologram mid-sentence.

A tiny figure stands silhouetted against the corridor lights, and Isabelle should’ve closed the front door before doing this, she knows this, but her judgment has been sluggish since she awoke in this devastatingly new world, like wading through honey, and her attention has suffered as a result.

She really should’ve closed the door.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she says.

It is the first time Isabelle has acknowledged her existence, but she has no idea how to talk to a child - especially one who is the physical manifestation of all that’s _wrong_ with the world, with _her_ world.

She’s not angry. She’s not hateful. She’s just… nothing.

“Mommy sent me to look for you,” Morgan Stark says, and her voice is subdued. 

She hasn’t seen her cry yet, but then, the child _had_ been born during the Decimation; she must’ve been intimately associated with death her whole short life, even if she didn’t completely understand it.

“What did she want?” Isabelle knows she’s being too abrupt, but all her edges are jagged, and there’s nothing inside that remains soft anymore.

Even her heart’s hardened, listening to Tony’s voice.

The child shrugs. “She didn’t say.”

She walks over to the child but doesn’t kneel. Morgan is shorter than expected for someone of her age - a Stark trait. Those eyes she has spent days avoiding are now locked onto hers.

“I’m Morgan,” she says.

“I know who you are.”

There’s a silence that’s almost speculative. Morgan takes a step forward. “Daddy always said I’m your namesake.”

She can tell where this is going, and it’s yet another light she wants to shy away from.

She’s running out of shadows to hide in.

Isabelle’s eyes slip away from hers, and she shoves her faintly trembling hands into her pockets. “I don’t think that’s true,” she says quietly. “Think they named you after your mom’s uncle.” She feels no regret when those brown orbs grow dull with disappointment.

It’s better for the child to learn to expect disappointment from her.

After all, eventually the only thing Morgan is going to remember about Isabelle Morgana Collins is that she abandoned her, just like her father had.

* * *

She’s lost in a fugue and forgets that she’d been summoned, so she just stands at the edge of the pier, forcing Pepper to come and find her.

“Izzy?” A soft voice breaks through her silent descent into someplace dark, and she turns around as Pepper walks towards her. “What’s wrong?” 

Isabelle aches as she watches her, this woman - a brilliant, strong, successful _CEO_ of a Fortune 500 company - falling into a stance that should be familiar only to soldiers, to fighters. 

To _Avengers_.

She and Tony had never wanted to drag Pepper into this. The fact that she was involved even peripherally, through association with them and Rhodey, was bad enough. They had promised each other that as long as they both lived, they would never force Pepper to wear a suit.

Well. They had kept that promise.

Because she had worn the suit only _after_ Thanos had turned Isabelle to dust.

“Nothing is wrong,” she says, and she is proud that her voice is calm, measured. “I… was just looking for Strange.”

“Doctor Strange?” she asks, her posture loosening slightly. “Why?”

“Just had a few questions. Nothing important. You need something?”

Pepper raises her eyebrows in the way she always does when she knows you are hiding something but is willing to let go. For now. “Nothing important,” she unironically echoes her words, “ - I was just about to ask you to come in. There’s apparently a storm incoming.”

She turns suddenly, her eyes zooming to the far side of the lake, her brows furrowed. Isabelle follows her gaze to find a figure, silhouetted against the evening sky, staring off into the unfamiliar Georgia skyline.

“Who’s that,” the redhead asks, squinting. “I can’t tell, my lenses are inside - _myopia,_ ” she admits when Isabelle arches an eyebrow.

Another change to contend with. A minor one, but, compounded as it is with everything else, it is suddenly too much.

“I’ll go see what he wants,” she offers, already moving off the pier. “Go in; I’ll be by later.”

“Be careful,” Pepper murmurs.

“Never,” she says, and Pepper’s eyes soften at the decade-old joke between them.

A bubble of normalcy in an ocean of uncertainty, a fragile bubble that bursts all too readily as she makes her way to the old figure, sitting at the edge of a property that did not belong to him, that shouldn’t have been accessible to any outsiders.

Her steps falter as she approaches him because something in her recognizes that back, stooped with age as it is. She stops a few feet away from him, trying to place those all-too-familiar shoulders, the checkered shirt tucked into khaki pants, the white hair parted neatly.

She would’ve said that she has never met this man before, if not for the bile that rises as she contemplates him. Her heart starts thudding faster in her chest, but not out of danger, she thinks, even as her feet carry her, dreamlike, through those few final steps.

No. This holds the exquisite taste of _contempt._

“Rogers,” she says flatly.

He has the gall to smile serenely at her. “Isabelle. It’s good to see you.”

She doesn’t respond.

She knows what he did. It’s what she herself had been about to do before Strange interrupted her, after all. It’s not as if she hasn’t pondered over the logistics of it, thought about every permutation and combination of that last battle, pinpointed every instance of it where things didn’t make sense, where things could’ve gone _so_ very differently.

But looking at him now solidifies one very simple, and yet immensely powerful fact.

Going back will not change her own past, will not bring back _her_ Tony.

It will just be _a_ Tony, who will have his own Izzy.

And when she returns home - _if_ she returns home, she would find that nothing has changed, that Tony is still gone in her reality, that Pepper is still a grieving widow, and that Morgan is still a fatherless child, too young to truly understand and yet now forced to grow up too fast.

It wouldn’t change anything. 

Time travel had fixed the problem of the Decimation. It would fix nothing else.

It infuriates her that she has to learn this from _Steve Rogers_. Because he had gone back, hadn’t he; created an alternative universe where he’d spent decades in the arms of Peggy Car - 

His fingers spasm and Isabelle’s eyes get caught on a strange glint.

She freezes.

Everything seems to stop. The wind in the trees, the gentle murmuring of the lake, the faint sounds of the birds making their way home for the night. Everything stills to an impossible halt, as though the universe itself had come to a standstill, and nothing matters.

Nothing other than that glint - an all too familiar _gold -_ on his fingers.

She draws in a breath that doesn’t seem to reach her lungs, and she can’t tear her eyes away from that simple band, and now her heart is beating in earnest now, the bitter buzz of adrenaline flooding her veins. 

She has never seen that ring before. Of course not.

But she has seen that specific _sheen_ of gold.

He has caught her staring, and age might have dulled his super-soldier senses, but not much, so she knows that he can hear her heart galloping away in her chest. His eyes turn soft, sad, and a little knowledge. 

He nods, and it's such a tiny thing she can’t quite tell whether it was really, truly a nod or just a tic.

“It’s all going to be okay, Isabelle,” he says with a firm conviction that spoke of decades, perhaps even a century, of experience.

And suddenly she can’t stand it anymore. The uncertainty, the ambiguity of it all. The train that is her life going off the rails so spectacularly she has no chance of mitigating damage.

She doesn’t care what his ring implies. She _can’t_ care.

“Not all of us get to steal a happy ending, Rogers,” she said, her voice dripping with frosty disdain. “Some have it stolen from them.”

Her words chill him, and his smile slips away, overtaken by an all too familiar frown. 

Not waiting for a reply, she just turns around and heads back to the house.

Pepper had been right.

There’s a storm incoming.

And if she isn’t careful, she would get swept up by it, never to be seen again.

* * *

Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes are standing next to the humongous figure of _Professor Hulk_. They are arguing with him from the looks of it, but they fall silent as she approaches them.

“Hey, Isabelle,” Wilson smiles slightly when she nods. They had never known each other well - so his betrayal during the Accords hadn’t particularly stung. She doesn’t bother acknowledging his other companion, who is standing just slightly behind Wilson, metal arm aligned carefully out of her view.

The old fury that she had felt towards Barnes is muted - melting snow instead of a raging blizzard. She is too overwhelmed to spare anything for a man wearing the face of the monster who had murdered her parents.

“Weather reports claim a storm’s coming. We should head inside,” she says shortly and turns to go when her eyes catch on the silver briefcase in Bruce’s green hand. “What’s that?” she asks, even though she knows.

“Too much power is what it is,” Bruce exclaims. “The secrets of time-travel should be buried.” He breaks off when he notices Rogers approaching from around the back, eyes widening at the sight of his aged appearance.

“What’s going on?” Cap asks. 

“Banner wants to destroy all the watches,” Wilson says. “The Time Platform has already been dismantled. I’m thinking that yeah, they’re dangerous, but what if something much worse than Thanos comes along, and we need them again? The only guy who could make them is gone, and we’ll be left with nothing if these are destroyed.”

Rogers slips his own Time-Space GPS from his bony, wrinkled wrist, and hands it over to Bruce, who sighs in relief and opens the vibranium case which holds all the watches. There are two hollow molds in the foam, and Bruce slides the watch into one of them.

“Where’s the one that went in there?” Barnes asks, pointing to the empty mold.

Bruce shrugs. “It belonged to Nebula. We didn’t find it on her doppelgängers’ body and trust me, we _looked_.”

Isabelle carefully doesn’t react.

“You’re saying it’s missing?” Wilson asks. “See, _this_ is why we should have one of our own. Who knows what the thief is doing with that damn thing.”

“I disagree,” Rogers says, voice hoarse and gravelly with age. “They should all be destroyed.”

“Steve,” Barnes starts.

“That kind of thinking is what led to the Chitauri Invasion, Buck,” he says, slashing a wrinkled hand through the air. “Using technology S.H.I.E.L.D. didn’t understand to create weapons is what allowed Loki to open the door to Earth. Just because they have big guns doesn’t mean we should mess around with stuff that we don’t understand, that we _can’t_ understand, not without…” he stutters off, sighs.

The two soldiers have no answer to that, but Barnes still looks pensive as Bruce snaps the case shut.

Wilson’s head snaps to somewhere beyond Isabelle’s shoulder. She follows his gaze to find Thaddeus Ross determinedly striding over to them, his beady eyes fixed on Bruce’s new form.

“Think you should hide, Cap,” he mutters. “We don’t want to have to explain _you_ to Ross.”

“Go with him,” Isabelle says. “I’ll handle Ross.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I have a few questions for him.”

“Holler if you need anything,” Wilson says as they all swiftly walk away.

“I won’t,” she promises, before making her way over to the former Secretary of State.

* * *

“Ross,” Isabelle greets, making no attempt to keep the revulsion out of her voice.

“Collins,” Ross says, his eyes still tracking Bruce’s form. “Where is Banner going with that case?”

“Don’t know, don’t care, don’t see how that’s any of your business. What are you doing here, Thaddeus? This is a family-and-friends-and-invitation-only service. And you don’t qualify for any of those.”

“I go where I’m needed, Collins,” he sneers. “I had some things to discuss with Mrs. Potts-Stark. I see they had a daughter,” he says, looking over her shoulder, no doubt zeroing in on Morgan still sitting on the back porch. Isabelle can imagine her now, seated on the bench with Happy, legs swinging as she munches on a burger he’d managed to procure for her. 

“Here’s hoping she inherits her father’s brains, and not her mother’s… poor taste in men.”

Isabelle takes a step forward, her hands in her coat pockets, keeping her posture light, relaxed. The cold rage that had burned when Strange was talking to her makes a comeback, but that’s nothing new. 

She has always had to resist the urge to give the Secretary a well-deserved kick in the balls.

Ross’ eyes snap to hers, and she can see in his eyes the clear disdain mixed with greed he has for her and hers. The Accords had forced her to reveal the truth of the nature of her abilities, not their origin, but that certainly hasn't stopped him from trying to collar her.

She takes another step forward, crowding him until he’s forced to step back. The ice creeps into her eyes, and she watches the blue-green of her irises reflect in his own.

“I’m assuming Pepper denied you whatever it was you were begging her for,” she says mildly. “So I think you should get lost before you push someone into throwing you out. Or _worse._ ”

Her breath is misting over, and it isn’t because it’s October in Georgia, and fall is just beginning to segue into winter. There’s a slight wind, but it certainly isn’t cold enough for his skin to burst into goosebumps.

But she _is._

“That sounds almost like a threat.”

“When it comes to you, it’s a prophecy.” After a long, tense moment, she lets the ice retreat into her bones, and he relaxes as her eyes turn brown again. 

He sneers but does as she says, his suit flapping in the wind as he hurriedly rounds the corner of the cabin and disappears out of sight.

Isabelle activates her comm. “F.R.I.D.A.Y., you there?”

“ _Always, skipper_ ,” the AI replies dully.

“Make sure he leaves, and then track him as far as you can. I want to know who sent him.”

“ _Yes, skipper._ ”

* * *

It is twilight, and she spots two dark silhouettes standing by the woods. One of them lights up brilliantly and launches herself into the sky, shooting further and further away until she’s nothing more than a distant comet.

Isabelle approaches the other figure.

Fury is staring up at the sky, watching Captain Marvel with a strangely wistful expression. He snaps out of it when she is close enough, his single dark eye calculating.

“Decided where you want to go next?” He asks as she falls in with him.

“I had an idea - but I’m not sure about it anymore,” she admits, thinking of the watch she’d finally hidden in her room. “Your offer to Barton - that stand for me too, Director?”

He snorts. “I’m hardly the Director. Not anymore. But… ,” and then he silently withdraws a leather badge and holds it out to her. After a brief moment of hesitation, she accepts it, her thumb brushing over the familiar eagle logo. “... I can point you to him.”

She doesn’t open it. She doesn’t need to. She knows what she will see.

She just nods.

“You sure you don’t want to spend some time with them?”

She looks over at the porch, at the bulbs humming to life in anticipation of nightfall. Silhouetted figures hover behind curtained windows, and if she concentrates, she can catch faint wisps of conversation.

“They’re better off,” she admits quietly.

“Your call,” Fury says, before letting out a slow, even breath that carries just the subtlest hint of relief to it.

“Welcome back, Agent Collins.”

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
> _Some say the world will end in fire,_  
>  _Some say in ice._  
>  _From what I’ve tasted of desire_  
>  _I hold with those who favor fire._  
>  _But if it had to perish twice,_  
>  _I think I know enough of hate_  
>  _To say that for destruction ice_  
>  _Is also great_  
>  _And would suffice._  
>  \- Fire and Ice, Robert Frost  
> 


	2. The Bones of the Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isabelle deals with the aftermath of a devastating terrorist attack and a massive betrayal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be shifting the Mass Effect timelines a lot to fit in with MCU's events. First hint of Mass Effect lore - or rather, _pre_ -Mass Effect lore - coming up!
> 
> Thank you to my beta, ElessarII, for reviewing this chapter!

_… The bones_

_of the past splinter between our teeth._

_This is our life, love. Why did I think_

_it would be anything less than too much_

_of everything?_

\- Sink Your Fingers into the Darkness of My Fur; Ellen Bass

  
  


###  **October 17th, 2023**

**Oval Office, The White House**

**1600, Pennsylvania Avenue**

**Washington D.C.**

“And how are we with Exodus?” President Robert Kelly asks.

“The project is in its final legs, Mr. President. Dr. Manswell assures us that the _Ark_ is almost ready. There has been no indication of delay - everything is proceeding according to plan.”

“And S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn’t know about this, right?”

“They remain unaware, as ever, sir. We caught a few of their spies trying to break through the firewalls of Operation Exodus, but they haven’t been able to glean anything from their attempts. They’ll find out when the rest of the world finds out - when we want them to.”

“That’s good. They’ve been helpful and all these past few years, but I don’t want them to somehow sabotage…”

He is interrupted by a loud shout followed by the bang of a door. He looks up in alarm only for his chair to be pushed back violently, and not by his sometimes overprotective security detail, but by the addition of a large weight on his lap.

The chair crashes into the back wall, jostling the curtains. The weight slides off his lap to land on the floor with a thump. His bad knee twinges sharply, and he really should get that looked at some point, but right now, his gaze is fixed at the lump sitting dazedly on the carpet of the Oval Office, blinking with bleary eyes.

All around him, his security detail is shouting, and there are two men beside him now, pulling him off his chair roughly, their guns drawn and pointed at the intruder who had somehow appeared in the White House, directly on top of the President of the United States.

The men are too loud, too panicked, and Kelly feels himself being shoved to the bookshelf on the far side of the room - behind which there’s a secret passageway that would take him to the underground nuclear bunker, he knows this - and he wouldn’t have resisted his detail if not for the fact that his eyes are fixed on the rather confused man blinking at the circle of guns pointed at him, making no move to either surrender or threaten.

He’s just about to call for order or backup or _something_ when the lump speaks. 

“What the _hell_ do you think you’re doing, Gyrich?”

There’s silence for a second there, a silence so profound - forget a pin, one could have heard a _feather_ drop. The guns are still trained on the man, the intruder, but they are hesitant now, their ears trying to place that oh-so-familiar voice.

But Kelly knows that voice. He knows it like the back of his own hand. He has heard it in his nightmares all these years.

“Mr. President?” Henry Gyrich’s voice rings through the Oval Office like a gunshot, making everyone flinch. It is hesitant, because he isn’t referring to Kelly - no, not at all. The head of the security detail has been serving in the White House for ten years, now, and he would remember that voice almost as well as Kelly himself.

“Who else?” Matthew Ellis snaps as he pushes himself off the floor with a muffled groan, brushing the dust off his suit - _the_ suit, the same suit he had been wearing _five years ago_. “Now put those damn guns away or I’ll have you all court-martialed!”

The guns wobble as realization seems to hit the men like an invisible wave. But they still don’t lower their weapons. Their gaze seems to flip between Kelly and Ellis, which is when the latter realizes that something is truly off.

“Mr. President?” Gyrich says again, quieter, and this time, Kelly knows that _that_ address was for him and him alone.

Kelly swallows the lump in his throat, unable to take his eyes off his predecessor, his mentor, his _best friend_. “Put them away, boys,” he says, and if his voice sounds a little weak, well, that’s the advantage of being President - nobody can call you out on it.

Ellis’s eyes flit around the room, watching as the men obey his (former, not that he knows that) Vice President’s orders above his own. Then he fixes them on Kelly, taking in his disheveled, yet still stately appearance. “What’s going on, Robert?”

Robert Kelly breaks. “Matt,” he sobs, as he rushes towards Ellis and throws his arms around him, not heeding his men as they uncomfortably look away from his shameful breakdown. 

“Matt, oh God, _Matt!_ ”

###  **November 1st, 2023**

**Somewhere in New York City Airspace**

“Twenty minutes out from the Lighthouse,” Major General Talbot mutters. His lips are pinched, his back ram-rod straight as he takes a seat opposite her. 

Glenn Talbot had been one of the few people who had survived the Decimation relatively unscathed, with his wife and son being spared. He had even gotten promoted for his services in bringing some order to the shitstorm that had been the past five years.

So she doesn’t know why _he’s_ her escort.

He hadn’t said much to her when she’d boarded the Quinjet, just offered a gruff greeting and - surprisingly sincere - condolences, the latter of which she has resigned herself to receiving from everyone she meets.

Talbot shifts uneasily and meets her eyes. He’s scowling faintly, but she’s relatively sure it’s not directed at her. 

“Agent Collins,” he begins.

She nods when he hesitates.

“I’ve gone through enough footage and reports to suspect that you aren’t as much of a hothead as your brother was, may God rest his soul. Am I wrong?”

“Not really much of a fire person, sir,” she says, completely straight-faced. It works, as he rolls his eyes and relaxes in his seat. 

“A word to the wise, then,” he murmurs. “Maybe I’m asking for too much, considering, well, everything… but I’m hoping you can rein in any possible violent urges when you meet the Director.”

She gives him a blank look. “Is there a reason why I would react aggressively to the Director?”

Talbot sighs. “I was told - and I’m quoting Tony Stark here - ‘his _face_ is reason enough’.”

Isabelle nods. “Sounds like him,” she says. Talbot throws her a sharp look at the non-inflection of her voice, and this is another thing she knows she has to get used to all over again - the surprise and unease everyone displays when talking to her.

She knows what they called her at S.H.I.E.L.D. She knows what her assessment says. It hadn’t bothered her before, when almost everyone had known her only as Isabelle Collins, but now… 

“You don’t need to worry about…,” she begins.

“Major!”

Agent Davis’ eyes are wide, trying and failing to keep panic at bay. “I think you should see this,” he stammers, before swiping at a panel on the dashboard with trembling fingers.

An orange hologram pops up between them. The Major is already half out of his seat, his eyes arrested by the view of the Statue of Liberty from what she assumes is a helicopter. For a blessed second, she’s confused, because nothing is happening… 

It’s a simulation, a hologram, and it has no bearing on the real world, but Talbot still staggers when the first explosion hits.

The collapse seems to occur infinitely slowly. The pedestal crumbles first, consumed by the conflagration. The robes swiftly follow. Isabelle spots the broken chain of the Lady Liberty for a split second before it, too, falls into flames that roar underneath the statue. 

The feed doesn’t have audio, but she can almost hear the thundering sound the head makes as it breaks off. It doesn’t fall into the raging fire and is instead carried by the rest of the collapse, and rolls down the visitor’s approach until it comes to rest right at the tip of the eleven-pointed star of Fort Wood.

The torch, ironically enough, is the last thing that feeds the flames of its own destruction.

Talbot’s face is white. “Collins,” he says, sounding as though he’d been holding out on breath for a while. “Looks like you’ve just received your first mission.”

He seizes the grab handles as Davis opens the ramp doors, buffeting them with frigid air. She doesn’t hear his command but can read his lips just fine - _put out those fires._

She doesn’t bother with a parachute.

* * *

**Liberty Island**

She can taste the smoke in the water.

She plunges deep, cutting a swift, graceful arc in the river. Out of the corner of her eye, she spots a pod of whales in the distance. She has missed this, she realizes - the water is the one place where she’s always been able to forget the things she’s wanted to forget. A part of her longs to stay, to sink into the depths of the Hudson, or perhaps swim out to the Atlantic, become one with the deep. 

But Isabelle can _still taste the smoke_.

She shoots out of the water, and a large wave rises behind her. It’s massive, easily twenty feet tall. It _splits_ from the river, tumbles into itself until it resembles a large rolling sphere of swell and surf. The wave-sphere chases her as she heads towards the center of Fort Wood, where it hovers over the burning remains of the Statue of Liberty, wobbling for a split second before plummeting.

It smashes into the fire, rapidly rushing down the ruins, dousing the flames that lick at the feet of those fleeing the scene. Guided by hands poised high above the island, the waves completely avoid the panicking tourists and frantic NYPD officers flooding the walkway and scrambling into emergency ferries. 

Instead of retreating into the river, each stream does an about-turn when it reaches the shore and rushes back into the inferno, smothering the fires, until, at long last, nothing is left but smoke and ruins.

Isabelle feels light-headed as she slowly lowers herself to a part of the Fort Wood platform that has, miraculously, escaped being crushed or consumed by fire. She crumples to the ground, draws in deep breaths as she cradles her numb arms.

The smoke is still heavy, but there’s little she can do about it without taxing her body even further. Vapor has always been more finicky, more volatile than liquid water, and manipulating the amount required to repel so much smoke is just asking for unconsciousness.

So she coughs and waits as the remaining trickles of water from the wave slowly seep into her body, rejuvenating her. She’s just contemplating another, longer soak into the Hudson when she sees figures in the smoke.

She rises on trembling feet ready to fold into two. “Who’s there?” she croaks, coughing into her arm and squinting.

There are three of them, their figures getting clearer in the smoke. One man raises an arm, and she brings up her own hand, above which hovers a swirling elegant sphere of water slowly freezing into ice. A warning.

But the figure isn’t holding a weapon. It’s just a palm, both palms now, raised in surrender. Slowly the rest of him comes out, and it’s undoubtedly a _him_ \- navy blue suit and tie, an N95 respirator, receding hairline.

The mask hides half of his face, but she would know those eyes anywhere.

The ice sphere splinters. She barely even feels the sting of the shards, staring as a dead man pulls off his mask.

“Hello, Agent Collins,” Philip J. Coulson murmurs.

* * *

Agent Jemma Simmons hums as she fusses over Isabelle’s Vitamin IV drip. The biochemist has already forced her to down lots of water and a cup of steaming tea. Isabelle’s insistence on taking a dip into the Hudson to heal her lungs of the smoke inhalation has fallen on deaf ears.

Or ears well-practiced in the art of obeying Phil Coulson’s orders over all others.

S.H.I.E.L.D. has managed to finagle one of the ferries the NYPD had been using to evacuate the tourists. Talbot and Agent Davis had climbed aboard not soon after she’d been brought in - the former had taken a long look at her and Coulson, and then nodded grimly before disappearing with the current Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.

In the span of a few seconds after laying eyes on Coulson, Isabelle had already discarded the obvious solution - resurrection via what is now colloquially, and unfortunately, known as the Blip. 

He looks shockingly older, and a whole lot healthier than the last time she’d seen him - pale with blue lips, unnaturally still on a metal slab.

**_Sleep well, Phil._ **

Coulson hadn’t been brought back by Bruce’s Snap. _He’d been alive this whole time._

“Another ten minutes and you should be good to go,” Simmons chirps, the smile on her face in stark contrast to her soot-streaked hair. She can see the red marks on her face where the respirator had pressed too tight.

Isabelle rips off the IV with a harsh yank, ignoring Simmons’ protests. “I’d like to speak to the Director,” she says firmly.

Simmons doesn’t quail and stares her down for a long moment before reaching for her comm unit. After a brief conversation, she nods unhappily. 

Isabelle’s out of the door before Simmons can tell her where to go.

* * *

She finds him on the deck, on which is parked a rectangular pod. She has seen these before - modules able to contain rogue Inhumans that had erupted after the Terrigenesis outbreak.

She stares at his back for a long moment, steeling herself. She is not keen on being smacked in the face by repeated reminders of betrayal. She feels as fragile as an ice sculpture, with cracks running to her core, but there are questions she needs answered, and she needs to confront him for those.

Stepping next to him, she fixes her eyes on the reinforced glass through which she can see Talbot and Coulson’s second-in-command, one Melinda May, bearing down on another man in his late thirties. 

The prisoner’s wrists are red from struggling against handcuffs that magnetically clamp to a panel on the wall of the containment unit. He’s singed and bruised, but Isabelle guesses that the injuries are from the backlash of the destruction, not Talbot’s heavy-handedness.

“Who’s he?” she asks.

“Member of the New York chapter of Freedoms First. They’re an extremist faction of secessionists protesting the union of the United North American States,” he explains.

Isabelle exhales. The UNAS as a concept is a lot more unbelievable than a purple alien with six gems managing to wipe out half of all life. A union between the United States of America, Canada, and Mexico - borne out of the devastation caused by the Decimation - seems like a dream.

It’d taken five years of talks and desperation and funds being moved around until they’d finalized the union in April. She’s a cynic, always has been - she had expected the Decimation to have splintered the world, not bring it together. It’s an idyll that seems like something from fiction.

But considering the smoke still pouring out of the ruins of the statue, it hadn’t been all that idyllic.

“What’ve they got?” she asks.

“From whatever May’s gathered, they smuggled small arms and upwards of ten tons of explosives onto the island. They shot or captured the guards, planted the explosives under the pedestal, and detonated at exactly 7:37 am.”

“Where’s the rest of the chapter?”

“Four of them were killed by the falling debris.” He hesitates. “They had a getaway aircraft with rudimentary cloaking technology, probably reverse-engineered from the S.H.I.E.L.D. files that were leaked during the HYDRA Uprising. One of my agents is on their tail as we speak… as well as one of his,” Coulson indicates to Talbot with a nod of his head.

“The Air Force's working with us?” Not exactly an unheard-of circumstance - after all, Talbot is the former’s official liaison to S.H.I.E.L.D. But to her knowledge, there is no one else, and it couldn’t have been him because he’d been escorting _her_.

Coulson shifts beside her. “A lot’s changed in the past five years. After the Snap, we realized we had to develop an open relationship with the military if we wanted to save humanity from complete and utter extinction.”

“And now?”

He shrugs. “The relationship continues. This… wasn’t a militaristic operation, though. It was an assessment.”

Isabelle remembers the last major assessment - Natasha Romanoff’s infiltration of Stark Industries in order to evaluate Iron Man as a potential candidate for the Avengers Initiative. 

Coulson, and by extension S.H.I.E.L.D, do not throw that term lightly. 

To anyone else, it would’ve seemed like so long ago - Vanko’s alliance with Hammer Industries, the palladium poisoning, the creation of Starkium. Tony hadn’t put the pieces back then, hadn’t connected her to the S.H.I.E.L.D. operative known as Aquamarine.

Compared to all the years, _decades_ , he’d spent not knowing who she was, _what_ she was, it doesn’t seem like that long.

“Who was the asset?” she asks, yanking her mind from the edge of the pit of memories that would drown her if she let them.

He takes a deep breath. “Victor Manswell. Ring any bells?”

Apparently she had escaped one pit only to fall into another, deeper one.

**_Would the bombshells never end?_ **

“Plenty of them,” she says, fighting to keep her voice even. A faint wind has sprung up, and she can smell rain in the air. “Tech billionaire, CEO of Manswell International, a visionary who spent his money on space exploration and extraterrestrial colonization. Gained recognition for his designs on colonial modular buildings.”

A single Wikipedia search could reveal all that, but Coulson’s asking for something more from her - something personal. When he realizes she isn’t going to be forthcoming, he nods slightly.

“And the most significant bell,” he says mildly, and a cold lump forms in her stomach, “ - _batchmate of Tony Stark_ at MIT. One of my agents uncovered a photograph in an off-campus bar; four individuals sitting around a table, celebrating what appears to be the annual MIT Robot Design Award - Manswell, Stark, Rhodes… and you.”

She closes her eyes against the bombardment of memories. It doesn’t help.

She remembers that day - how could she not? Tony and Manzee had been going steady for a year, his longest relationship outside of Pepper - and it had also been the very first time she’d met Rhodey.

It’d been one of her happiest memories - in a time which had too few of those. Ironic, considering Manswell had literally bumped into his future husband, Jake, in that very same bar, on that very same day.

They’d been so _young_.

“Tony and Manswell were working on something?” she asks with some difficulty. Coulson wouldn’t have brought up her brother, not so soon after… not if he didn’t have a good enough reason.

He passes her a StarkPad. The screen displays the schematics of an advanced aircraft that looks a hell of a lot like the Insight Helicarriers, except larger. And powered by industrial-standard _arc reactors._

“Project Exodus,” the Director explains. “Manswell’s private interstellar exploratory mission. Three hundred colonists cryogenically frozen aboard the Ark will be the first colony to settle on an extrasolar planet.”

She hands it back. Her fingers tremble for an instant before she snaps back her hand and slips it into her pockets - but he’s already seen it. He shoots her an incomprehensible look.

“It’s departing in three months,” he continues. “S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Air Force were assessing the conditions of the Ark when the attack occurred. We were… close, which is why we were able to respond so quickly.”

She’s long since stopped paying attention to the interrogation that’s starting to become increasingly heated. “Space colonization,” she says, proud that her voice remains steady. “After everything, after Thanos - how does he think he’ll get away with this?”

She has not completely managed to suppress the grief in her tone, but she likes to think she’s masked it enough with her abundant bewilderment. But if anyone could see through it, it would be Coulson.

There had been a time when he had known her better than most. Trusted her better than most - and vice versa.

“The President’s already approved of this, Isabelle,” and he says, using her given name for the first time, and it’s so gentle on his lips she bristles. He doesn’t deserve it, the intimacy, as though they are still friends, instead of strangers divided by time and tragedy and betrayal.

She knows, she _knows_ , that she has lied to and hurt and betrayed a lot more people than he had, than he could fathom. No one would ever find out the extent of her sins. But one fact prevents her from reaching out, from giving him absolution - she has done heinous things, yes, but only under _duress_.

Coulson had betrayed her and the rest of the Avengers of his own damn volition.

The door to the containment unit slides open and Talbot stalks out, May at his heels. Their expressions are poles apart - Talbot looks like a storm had made its home in his face, but May looks almost refreshingly blank. No chinks in that woman’s armor.

Her expressionless countenance stirs a fifteen-year-old memory in her mind, helpfully titled _‘The Cavalry’_. Isabelle had been one of the few agents to have access to the unredacted reports of the mission that had bestowed May the nickname.

A welcome wagon to a potential Gifted Index candidate in Bahrain that had gone horribly south. She’d read between the lines and privately discerned the involvement of Inhumans.

Only Isabelle’s kind is capable of that much chaos.

“He claims there was a rogue,” Talbot is saying to Coulson. “One of theirs - the scientist who created those explosives, apparently - detonated them three minutes early. Four of the Fighters didn’t manage to escape the rubble, and the scientist, Fred something, took off in their getaway aircraft along with the rest of the Fighters. We have to assume they worked with him to sabotage the mission.”

“Does our friend inside know why?”

Talbot, scowling, shakes his head. “This Fred was new, apparently - brilliant, driven, focused. May says Rhodes and another of your agents snuck aboard their plane?”

She feels like her insides have been yanked to her outside. “Rhodes?” she asks sharply, but this is one question she doesn’t need answered.

Who else would the Air Force send as a liaison to Victor Manswell? Rhodey was the perfect man for this, just like he’d been perfect for Stark Industries.

Coulson nods. “His last report stated that there were more explosives on-board.” His eyes are troubled, and his eyes keep snapping to the sky.

“Could’ve used War Machine right about now,” Talbot mutters.

“Unfortunately, the suit itself doesn’t lead to subtlety, so he left it here with us, Major.”

Something is nagging at her mind. Broken links of a chain of events. Too many things are crowding her mind, too many bombshells have been dropped on her, and she isn’t able to _think._

Ignoring the others, she walks to the edge of the deck, bends over the railing. The river is clear, despite the smoke, and she stares down into the depths until she can feel the water clear her thoughts, structure her mind so it resembles a beehive, not a haystack.

The Statue. The UNAS. Freedoms First. Manswell, _Tony_ , _Rhodey_. The Exodus.

**_It’s all connected._ **

“What the hell?” May’s low voice makes her turn around. She follows her gaze up to the sky, grayed out by heavy, stormy clouds and smoke. But just above the clouds, she can see an enormous shape that flickers from view, like a pixelated video.

For a moment, she thinks she’s imagined it, but then it ripples again, and she’s able to make out the shape of it as it leaves behind an echo on the back of her eyelids.

The huge structure hovering above them looks exactly like the Ark that was to depart on Manswell’s Expedition.

* * *

It’s a Helicarrier. Where else would it be except up _in the air?_

“The President’s lost his marbles,” Talbot grumbles, squinting at the flickering, ghost-like figure in the sky. “Whose brilliant idea was it to park that thing above NYC?”

“The Ark’s making rounds of all the major cities,” Coulson says. “Better question is - why is the cloaking fritzing like that?”

“Power triage?”

Coulson gives him a look. “It runs on _four_ arc reactors. The power on that thing is not going to go out for at least thirty years.”

May hums, and that noncommittal sound is enough to grab Coulson’s attention. “What are the odds that the Ark is malfunctioning on the same day terrorists decide to target the Liberty?”

There’s a silence. “You think this was a diversion?” Talbot asks disbelievingly, pointing over his shoulder to the smoking ruins behind them.

“I’m saying this level of coincidence is never actually a coincidence.”

Isabelle has been staring at the Ark since May pointed it out. There’s something off about the flickering. She’s seen glitches in cloaking, and it’s never been that abrupt, that uneven. It’s almost as if… she exhales. 

“May’s right,” she says, and their heads snap to hers. “That’s not a malfunction. It’s Morse Code.”

All of them turn as one to peer at the Ark far above them. It’s difficult to make out through the smoke and the overcast sky and after a minute, she herself is starting to feel unsure but then a voice calls out from behind them.

“GETAWAY HIJACK,” Agent Simmons says, walking towards them. “Of course, I can’t be sure, because the vowels are missing in the original message.”

“What’s that mean - _getaway hijack_?” the Major demands.

Coulson is looking out at the island, and he’s silent for long enough that May starts to look concerned.

“Phil?”

His eyes are shadowed when he turns toward them. “I lost contact with Rhodes and Agent Johnson almost as soon as they left to pursue the escapees.”

Isabelle and May stiffen in unison. “The getaway plane,” May whispers. “What if it didn’t get away at all? What if it just headed… for the Ark?”

“The plane had rudimentary cloaking tech,” Talbot says, his face changing into one of dawning horror as he looks up to the sky. “Strong enough to block communications to the outside. Rhodes wouldn’t have been able to warn us, or call his suit remotely.”

“We need to get up there.”

“What are we waiting for? We have Quinjets of our own!”

“We don’t know what this Fred is doing up there,” May point outs. “If we go in guns blazing, he might shoot any hostages he might have.”

“Well, we can’t just sit here and twiddle our thumbs!”

It rapidly deteriorates from there. Their rising voices and arguments become noise in her head, drowned by a silent mantra ringing through her - Rhodes, Jim, _Rhodey_. Everything inside her seems to have frozen. She shuts her eyes.

It’s all conjecture - but she can feel it in her bones. He’s up there. Without the armor. Vulnerable.

A memory of watching him fall in a dead suit in an airport in Berlin through a video screen flashes across her eyes, and she can’t suppress the flinch in time.

“Collins?”

She’s lost enough.

“Let me go.” The words slip out before she’s even consciously formed the decision. But she wouldn’t take them back even if she could.

“ _Absolutely_ not. It’s too dangerous.”

She opens her eyes, and she knows what Coulson is seeing right now as he glares at her - brilliantly blue-green eyes - because while he doesn’t react, _Talbot_ blanches.

“No one here can get up there,” she says, “I can shoot up from the water, make my way into the Helicarrier, and no one will even _see_ me if I’m in my vapor form.”

She’s not getting through to him, and her frustration makes her breath mist over. All of that fury and grief and betrayal she’d been suppressing just to be able to function since the light went out of her brother’s eyes are right there, simmering below the surface.

She can’t see that with Rhodey - she _won’t._

“We’re running out of time - we don’t know what’s up there, _who’s_ up there, how _many_ of them are there, _or_ what they’re planning!”

Coulson’s shaking his head stubbornly, and she makes out the echo-shadow of grief-guilt-desperation that crosses his face for a second. “It’s too risky - we’ll come up with another way.”

“There isn’t one,” and that’s May. He looks as though she just stabbed him in the back, but she doesn’t flinch, just stares steadily. “We’ll never get a better plan, and the longer we stand here arguing - the worse the situation becomes for Daisy and Rhodes. Phil,” and here her calm countenance breaks for an instant, “ - _trust her._ ”

The words were only addressed to the Director, but it hits her just as hard. The perfect words to push Coulson to let her go - because he hadn’t trusted her to reveal himself all these years, he hadn’t trusted any of the Avengers. And now, May’s words would force him to confront the reason why.

Was it because he hadn’t believed in her? Or _himself_?

Neither questions are easy to answer, and Coulson knows it. He swallows, then shuts his eyes for the briefest of moments, before fixing them on her. They’re flint steel, and for the first time in more than ten years, they’re on the same page.

“Don’t take unnecessary risks, and _do not_ expose yourself unless it’s absolutely necessary - am I clear, Agent Collins?”

“Crystal,” she nods. She strides to the edge of the deck and climbs up the railing. Balanced precariously on the metal taffrail, her toes curling, she looks back one last time and meets his eyes.

"Good luck," he says, the wind barely carrying the words across.

Her eyes flash one last time, and she knows he can read what they say.

_**I don't need luck.** _

She shuts her eyes and lets herself fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Mass Effect Context:** I'm combining two events that happened in the Mass Effect universe - the Manswell Expedition launch and the Statue of Liberty getting destroyed.
> 
> In 2070 of the canon universe, billionaire Victor Manswell starts funding his own private spaceflight expedition. It takes him about five years. 
> 
> In 2096 of the canon universe, a group called the Freedoms First brought down the Statue of Liberty to protest the formation of the United North American States, a union of Canada, Mexico, and the US. 
> 
> The above timelines are from the ME wiki. Canon details are very few. So I compressed the timeline to fit into 2023, wove in relationships, and plot details so it makes sense.
> 
> Let me know your comments on this chapter!


	3. For Death is Weaving Shadows 'Round my Waning Sight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The real plan of the Freedoms First is put into effect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to my beta, ElessarII, for reviewing this chapter. Wouldn't be able to do this without you, buddy.

_“Light! more light! for Death is weaving_

_Shadows 'round my waning sight,_

_And I fain would gaze upon him_

_Through a stream of earthly light."_

\- Let the Light Enter; Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

###  **November 1st, 2023**

####  **The Ark, Manswell Helicarrier**

**Somewhere in New York Airspace**

Daisy has had a lot of bad days.

But this one really takes the cake.

She punches a Freedom Fighter, before spinning to face another sneaking up to her. Parrying a blow, she hooks her right leg with the back of his knee, and he goes crashing to the ground.

Behind her, Colonel James Rhodes has downed four of the Fighters and is currently grappling with a fifth one. He twists and wrestles the Fighter to the ground and pins him face-down into the floor.

He doesn’t spot the shooter aiming at his back.

She feels the vibration of the gun more than hears the click of the safety, and she has her palm facing outwards even before the bullet leaves the revolver.

Her Quake isn’t powerful enough to completely disintegrate the bullet, and the shrapnel hurtles back towards the shooter and embed themselves in her chest. 

Daisy winces as the Fighter goes down. Rhodes twists around sharply, blinking at the woman for a second. 

“Lethal force is still a measure of last resort, Agent Johnson,” he says. His voice isn’t admonishing, but she still feels as though she’s been raked over the coals. Being on a mission with an Avenger has its downsides. “Lucky, though,” he smiles faintly, “ - that she’s wearing cutting-edge Kevlar. Behind you,” he warns before diving, once more, into the foray.

They make quick work of the rest of them. Rhodes magnetically handcuffs them to the walls as she makes her way to the ancient computers lining the back wall.

She’d been on the Ark with May and Coulson when the first explosion hit. Their response had been swift, but it had taken herself and Rhodes sneaking back into the Helicarrier to find out that one of the worst terrorist attacks since 9/11 had been little more than a diversion for something far worse.

There are five explosives hidden somewhere inside the facility. Energy emissions match the ones that had taken out the Statue, but pinpointing them on the massive Helicarrier proved impossible without direct access.

The computers are ancient, but she looks around until she spots the StarkPad she’d hastily tossed hidden beneath the wires. She winces at the crack on the screen.

The first thing she’d done after they’d returned to the Ark was to hack into the systems controlling the retro-reflective panels lining the hull and fiddled around with them. With any luck, Coulson would’ve decoded the message. 

She types feverishly for a few seconds, hacking further into the Ark’s internal servers. 

What she finds makes her blood run cold. 

Rhodes peers over her shoulder. “What’s that pressure altimeter linked to?” His voice is deceptively easy as he points out the model of a circular dial on the screen. It has three different pointers displaying the altitude of the Ark above sea level and a digital gauge meter for the atmospheric pressure.

Daisy silently brings up the schematics of what looks a hell of a lot like a trigger.

He exhales. “Single barometric fuze, connected to all the bombs. If the pressure drops below a certain point, they’ll go off.”

“Actually, Colonel - I think it’s the other way round. The gauge shows the pressure is actually _increasing_.”

Rhodes is silent for a long time.

“The Ark is descending,” he says, and she marvels at his ability to not appear even slightly tense. “You narrowed the location of the bombs yet?”

“Yeah,” she sighs. “It’s easier to triangulate the energy signatures from here. There’s one near every arc reactor, Colonel.”

“That leaves one.” His calm, expressionless exterior is broken by a frown. Goosebumps break across his skin. “Did it just get… colder here?” he asks in a low voice.

She looks over. “The door’s open,” she remarks; they’d forgotten to close it after the Fighters had burst through. “Probably just a draft.”

His face is scrunched, as though he’s on the verge of a realization. “No, I mean…”

She never learns what he means because that’s when she hears it.

The low hum coming from the entrance.

Her Terrigenesis hadn’t just given her the ability to deploy powerful concussive blasts. It’d given her the ability to _hear_ the vibrations of all things, at all times. For the most part, it’s a pain in the ass, so she has trained herself to treat it as background noise; distant awareness instead of constant cognizance.

So she knows _exactly_ when something’s in the room that’s not supposed to be.

“Can you hold this for a sec?” she interrupts him, and he blinks at her, before bemusedly taking the StarkPad she hands out. She sees the exact moment it hits him - the realization - and he opens his mouth, but she’s already twisted around, her palm thrown outward. 

Her Quake leaves a depression on the metal wall it’s aimed at. “Who’s there?” she demands, but then she feels a heavy hand on her elbow.

Rhodes - who’d calmly given out orders while watching Lady Liberty fall and who hadn’t flinched even while attempting an insane dive from a plane onto the Helicarrier _-_ is white.

“ _Stop_ ,” he whispers, the StarkPad clattering to the ground. He dashes to the wall, before stumbling to a stop, his eyes wide, terrified. She follows his gaze and is barely able to make out a vaguely humanoid figure made of little more than _steam_.

Rhodes reaches out with trembling fingers, and the vapor _condenses_ into watery, wobbly limbs, which themselves morph into a black uniform with dark blue highlights. Daisy’s stomach plummets as she watches the familiar hooded figure slowly, painfully reform itself into a human; Rhodes steadying it - _her_ \- when she falls to her feet.

She is staring with horrified fascination, but she can’t find it in herself to close her eyes out of shame, even though she’d just basically _disintegrated_ an Avenger.

“I’m not missing any bits, Jim,” Isabelle Collins - _Aquamarine_ \- finally assures the Colonel, _her husband_ , who pats her down almost frantically. She sounds exhausted.

Collins rises slowly, her legs trembling for an instant before she nods at Rhodes and moves away. Her eyes meet Daisy’s. 

“I am _so…_ ” Daisy doesn’t even finish her apology before Collins holds up a hand.

“You have good instincts,” she says, “and I shouldn’t have snuck in.” She glances at Rhodes. “It’s difficult to… focus on more than one thought, when I’m in vapor form.”

His fingers still linger on her shoulders, before lightly grazing against the familiar eagle-shaped badge on her uniform. 

“S.H.I.E.L.D,” he whispers, and his hands drop as if burnt. Their eyes meet, and there’s an intensity to their gaze that makes her look away; Daisy has known Rhodes for only a few hours, but she’s never seen him this focused about anything the way he is towards his wife.

Collins nods. “Was headed to the Lighthouse with Talbot when we got the news,” she says. Her expression is eerily, uncomfortably blank, but unlike Rhodes, who’s mostly - enviably - calm and composed, _her_ face reminds Daisy of the walls of Troy.

Unbreachable.

Talbot’s name breaks through her musing, and Daisy shoves down the pang of guilt that always accompanies any mention of the General _-_ Major, he’s a Major General now. “Coulson got our message then?” She doesn’t care that her voice gives away her desperate relief.

Collins inclines her head. Her eyes, hazel brown, fix on hers. “Heard what you said about the pressure trigger. Four arc reactors, four big booms. Where’s the fifth?”

Rhodes inhales and backs off to a publicly appropriate distance. “Don’t know. Most likely the bridge. I’m gonna try and liberate it - it’s pretty heavily occupied. Plus I think the pilots can tell me how to stop this bucket from going down.”

“Want me to come with?”

Rhodes smiles, and it looks almost uncomfortable. Daisy glances away from the very obvious display of _trouble in paradise_ radiating from the couple.

“Johnson is going to need you more than me. Both of you are going to be on bomb disposal duty.”

Daisy gapes, but before she can argue, Collins cuts in. “Not really my speed, Rhodey. I’m muscle, not a bomb expert.”

“No, but she is,” Rhodes nods at her. “I looked over the schematics - you don’t need training for this. Make your way to each of them - the proximity will help you hack into and interrupt the signals between the trigger and the explosive. We can dismantle them after we’ve cleared the Ark.”

“Sounds too easy.”

He laughs lightly. “It’s not. Not even for someone who can hack into a Stark-secured internal server inside a Helicarrier.” Collins stiffens, then looks over to her, an eyebrow arched as though she’s looking at her in a whole new light.

The oblique regard just serves to raise Daisy’s hackles, though, and she suddenly remembers why she has always disliked Isabelle Collins.

“You’ll attract attention the second the Fighters figure out what you’re up to,” the Colonel is saying. “Johnson’s going to need to focus on interrupting those signals.”

“Which is where I come in,” Collins says. 

“Remember,” Rhodes says, and his voice is suddenly solemn, “ - if the bombs take out the reactors at that height - there won’t _be_ any New York City left to save.”

They nod in unison.

“Radio silence until you’ve deactivated the explosives.”

* * *

**The Ark**

Isabelle’s still feeling the after-effects of the Quake which had literally shaken her apart. 

“I’m _really,_ _truly_ sorry,” Agent Johnson says, not for the first time.

Isabelle shrugs. “Anyone who defends my husband so swiftly is fine in my books,” she says honestly. “How far is it?”

They’re making their way to the fourth reactor, which is situated deep in the bowels of the Helicarrier. Johnson had done a brilliant job deactivating the first three explosives, having grown more and more confident with each one.

The lithe agent’s fingers fly across the keyboard of her StarkPad. “Not far. This explosive’s the biggest yet. Expect heavy resistance.”

Isabelle nods. Johnson’s unnatural talent in hacking the Ark’s servers is almost superior to her ability of blasting away enemies with her palms. 

She has heard of Quake. The Inhuman had first come under her radar when the UN had ordered her to bring in the vigilante toppling banks to donate to the poor, like some kind of modern-day Robin Hood. 

Isabelle had smelled a coverup when the then-Director of S.H.I.E.L.D, Jeffrey Mace, had made a public announcement legitimizing Johnson as an undercover operative. Of course, that status hadn’t lasted long, because a few months later, Mace was found dead and Johnson had been directly responsible for the attempted assassination of General Glenn Talbot.

Isabelle wonders how Johnson had gotten herself out of that particular pickle. And then it hits her - the world had been preoccupied with something far worse than one rogue Inhuman assassinating a highly decorated Air Force official.

In the here and now, Johnson stops near a metallic door. “Here we go,” she says, pushing it open.

Beyond lies the central control hub for the entire Ark. It’s a large cylindrical room, at the center of which are sets of mechanical extensions reaching out from the floor and the ceiling. Each set is conical in shape, like flower petals about to bloom. The whole setup is surrounded by a humming, hexagonal-patterned proximity shield.

And between the two sets of arms is the all too familiar light of an arc reactor, shining so bright and blue as though it could never go out.

**_But you’ve seen it go out, haven’t you?_ **

“Explosive?” she demands, wrenching her mind back to the present.

Johnson makes her way to a narrow opening on the far side of the room. “On it. Central terminal’s through here,” she nods at the tunnel that the opening leads to, beyond which Isabelle can see strains of faint reddish light. “This signal’s difficult to isolate, so it’s going to take a while, and I’m not going to be able to hide us.”

Isabelle glances at the contraption powering the most essential systems in the Ark. “Is the trigger going to be in any way affected by a slight decrease in temperature?”

Johnson blinks. “Uh, no. We _are_ rapidly approaching the pressure threshold, but it won’t be for another fifteen minutes. Why?”

Isabelle silently raises her hands, palms up. Mist begins to flow down from her semi-gloved palms, sliding over the floor in thick, smoky waves.

Quake looks over shrewdly as the mist slowly obscures the room. Anyone who bursts through the door is going to have a tough time seeing anything. “I thought your gift was hydro _kinesis_ , not genesis.”

“It is,” Isabelle confirms. “But the suit’s superabsorbent - the pores can hold a lot of water without gaining volume. And so can I. Stay out of the way - they won’t be able to see you, but you won’t see them either.”

Johnson nods and disappears down the tunnel.  
  


* * *

**The Core**

The Fighters come in slow.

Isabelle’s pulled up her hood - her haze lenses allow her to easily discern figures and shapes through the mist. They’re all packing heavy heat, something that makes her pause.

The reactor’s shielded, but she can’t have weapons discharge so close to the core. There’s no telling what other essential mechanisms are inside this room, so she needs to go about this delicately.

Plus, it wouldn’t do to get Daisy Johnson accidentally shot.

She tiptoes to the first Fighter, slips behind him, wraps an arm around his throat and tugs. The man gasps and grapples at her arm. Her other hand snaps out to snag the assault rifle before it falls. She keeps her hold tight until she feels the man slump then gently lowers him to the ground before snapping a magnetic handcuff onto him.

She uses the butt of the rifle to knock out a second Fighter, and then silently deals with a couple more before they finally catch on.

The next one manages to sense and evade her, and Isabelle isn’t able to stop her from calling out a warning. After that, it’s an all-out war.

It’s a good thing the Fighters are just as afraid of accidentally firing off a shot and hitting their own comrades, but it doesn’t stop them from using knives or their firearms as melee weapons.

She ducks beneath a rifle, and throws a jab at one’s ribs, before spinning around and aiming below the belt at another. He crumples, and she grabs the rifle of the first, yanks hard, and rams it over the head of the second before driving it back into the first one’s nose. 

There is no end to them, and eventually, she finds herself facing off against a big guy. Well, ‘facing off’ might be a bit of a stretch because she is pressed with her back to his front, her very life being squeezed out of her.

She is finding it difficult to breathe, difficult to think, and she can’t pull off another vapor mode or even water mode. They’re dangerously close to the reactor’s shield - Isabelle can feel its hum in her teeth. She stomps her heel down on his instep, and as he loosens his grip for a second, chambers her knee and follows it with a hard kick to his shin.

His grip slackens, and she wriggles free, spins around, but he’s faster, and he backhands her so hard she smashes into the floor.

Her head is spinning, both from the earlier suffocation and the hit. She can feel the sting of her split lip, and has barely enough sense to roll and avoid another punch aimed at her head.

She holds up her hands, gathers the mist around her, and propels them towards his head. He stumbles to a stop, completely blinded by the thick, literal fog in his eyes, so he doesn’t see her when she twists and hooks a leg behind his knee and jerks as hard as she can.

The huge Fighter trips, his flailing arms unable to find purchase - and crashes into the reactor’s shielding.

The shield lights up like fireworks. An electric charge brilliantly illuminates the hexagonal pattern, and the Fighter jerks hard. She imagines his eyes bulging, popping as the current courses through his body, lighting up his veins through the fog, frying him from the inside out. 

She scrambles backward as the body slides off the shield and collapses at her feet - almost retches as the smell of burnt flesh wafts towards her.

The stench brings the others too, and soon she’s fighting for her life again, her head ringing with the effort to keep ancient, horrifying memories from consuming her.

The rest are easy, if numerous. Her body is tiring, and she has had to constantly restore her constitution by absorbing the mist, which just allows them to see her better. She finally just gives up and redirects the rest of the mist to the entrance of the terminal booth where Johnson’s still working on interrupting the signal.

The mist is a worse beacon than the Bat-Signal, so she just retreats into the far side of the room and makes it as thick as she can while she waits for them. The narrow tunnel is a choke point, which is a double-edged sword because even though they’re able to come at her only one at a time, she doesn’t have enough space to move around. 

She punches, kicks, bites, grabs, twists, but receives just as many wounds as she hashes out, and the white of the fog is tinged with red now, because the water in her suit had run out long ago and she’s had to use the blood plasma from her own deep cuts to fuel the mist.

Just when she thinks she can’t handle another hit, she hears a muffled thud from behind her, and a voice orders, “ - _duck_.”

She hits the ground almost gratefully. The last few Fighters go down under Johnson’s powerful Quake and for a few moments, there’s a blessed silence broken only by her loud breathing.

She brushes off Johnson’s outstretched hand and rises on shaky legs. The remnants of the mist cling to her skin, and judging by Johnson’s stare, it’s not a pretty sight.

“You done?” Isabelle asks, and her voice is too abrupt, but she’s too exhausted to care about niceties now.

Johnson’s eyes narrow, and she glances to the body of the huge Fighter lying next to the core. “Are you? You weren’t supposed to kill anyone.”

It’s not as if she hasn’t killed before - she’s been a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent almost her whole life, and her very first kill had been when she’d been sixteen.

“It was him or me.”

And it’s not as though it’s the worst death she’s ever seen. She’s been personally responsible for plenty of gruesome deaths, but there have been few in her life that have stuck with her throughout the years.

“What the hell was that flash?”

Isabelle shrugs. “The shielding is powered by the reactor. He must’ve hit something critical when he fell, and the shield overloaded.”

“Sounds like experience talking.”

She closes her eyes. “I’ve seen it happen before.”

The Fighter’s body flashes behind her eyelids, merging with another kill she hasn’t allowed herself to think of in years - that of one Obadiah Stane. Tony had reached out when Stane had been falling, and the Monger had grabbed on - and had tried to _reel him in._

Stane had always been the kind of man to pull others down with him as he pitched into the abyss.

In the end, it hadn’t been much of a choice at all. She had frozen Stane’s wrist until he’d screamed and let go - and fallen into the overloading arc reactor.

Tony had never quite forgiven her for that.

An urgent beep interrupts her descent into the hell of unwanted memories, and she blinks at the StarkPad Johnson’s peering into. 

Quake turns so white that adrenaline starts to flood Isabelle’s body again. “What?”

She just turns the Pad towards her.

It’s the footage of the deck outside, surrounded by thick, dark clouds - Johnson probably hacked the external cameras.

It shows three individuals on the deck, two clustered together, while one lingers almost uncomfortably close to the edge. There’s no audio, and she can’t make out their faces, but she would know Rhodey’s figure anywhere. She clutches the tablet with a white-knuckled grip.

“Fred Moppino,” Johnson whispers, pointing at the lone figure gesticulating wildly, the unmistakable shape of a large rifle in his hands. “He was the one who blew up the Statue of Liberty early.”

And suddenly all the pieces come together.

Isabelle stands there frozen, all her pain and exhaustion slipping from her mind. The wedding ring she always wears in a chain around her neck during battle feels impossibly heavy now. She’s somehow numb and cold at the same time.

“What are they doing, just standing there?” Johnson demands. “Stalling?”

“No,” Isabelle breathes. “They aren’t stalling… _he is.”_

“What?”

“I know where the fifth bomb is. Can you hold down the fort?”

Johnson blinks, and her hand is suddenly like a vice around her shoulder. “Hold on a second - you are in no condition to go anywhere, I’m coming with…”

Isabelle twists sharply. Johnson, to her credit, doesn’t rear back when her eyes flash a deep cyan. “The shield around the reactor is down,” she whispers, and it’s so intense it might as well have been a shout. “The rest of the Fighters breach this room - it won’t matter if we deactivated the signal, you hear me?”

Johnson examines her for a long second, and Isabelle is almost shaking, but then, she lets go. “You can’t deactivate it on your own.”

Isabelle meets her eyes squarely. “I’m not planning to.”

* * *

####    
**The Deck**

Jim’s fingers twitch as they wrap around Victor Manswell’s elbow.

It’d been hard to breathe when he’d first jumped onto the Ark with Agent Daisy Johnson. But ever since Moppino’s men had overwhelmed him right outside the bridge and threatened Vic if he didn’t accompany them, he’s found the air to be almost comfortable.

That isn’t good, because it means the Ark is descending. The pressure threshold is rapidly approaching. His comms had been ripped from his ear and smashed, so he has no way of knowing Izzy and Johnson’s status. His throat tightens.

He turns his attention to Moppino, who’s shaking at the edge of the deck. He’s already fired a few shots at them in warning when they’d attempted to come closer. 

The terrorist mastermind has no intention of actually jumping, of course not. 

He’s planned for something far worse.

And all in a desperate, vain attempt to stop something years in the motion.

“We sent men and women into space,” he’s yelling through the wind. Behind him, dark clouds hang heavy and foreboding. “We didn’t plant a flag on the moon, we _waved_ a red one in the face of destroyers of worlds!”

Victor tries to calm him, yet again. “Thanos isn’t coming back, son. He’s gone.” Despite having zero experience with being a hostage, Vic is doing an admirable job of staying composed.

Billionaire moguls face rabid hordes of media sharks on a regular basis, Jim reminds himself with a flinch. He’d been on the side of one for years, after all.

“He might be gone,” Fred’s shouting, “but worse things are waiting for us out there in the cold! How much worse will it be if you start building houses on other planets? We shouldn’t be looking to spread out there, we should be shoring up our defenses here! Out there is darkness humanity was not meant to breach!”

“You have to know - we don’t negotiate with terrorists,” Jim tries. 

“Oh, I’m not looking to negotiate, Mr. War Machine, sir,” he says, and for the first time, the fury in his eyes has been replaced by an almost manic calm. He checks his watch absently and Jim’s blood runs cold. “The time for negotiation was over when a burning plane crushed my babies five years ago. I got lucky, you see. I was the one who got turned to ash.”

“You’re not the only one who’s lost.” He’s not at his best today, sick with worry at the thought of his loved ones on this damned Helicarrier.

Moppino’s face twists with rage. “What have you lost? What can compare to losing your children, your entire family?”

“ _Nothing._ ”

If Jim was afraid before, it’s nothing compared to what he feels when an all-too-familiar voice emerges from the entrance. “ _Izzy…_ ”

She looks terrible, drawn and exhausted, her uniform soaked with blood. She steps onto the deck lightly, her hands raised in surrender. Her eyes are fixed on Moppino. “Nothing can compare to losing… _everything_.”

“Stay back!” Moppino shouts, waving his gun, and she stills. Jim’s heart leaps to his throat and he makes an aborted motion forward, only to freeze when her eyes snap to his in a silent warning. “Don’t come any closer!”

She nods. “Do you know who I am?”

He stares for a long moment. “You’re Aquamarine, the Avenger.”

She laughs, then, and they all stare at her, stupefied. “That word doesn’t mean anything anymore,” she says, shaking her head. “I don’t even know if I still deserve that title, if I still _fit_ … I mean, what the hell did _I_ avenge?” Her smile turns incredibly bitter. “But you know what makes me truly different?”

“I was the only one of the original seven Avengers to not survive the Snap.”

The wind is silent now, the previously rumbling clouds still and quiet - the world being just as transfixed by her as its people. For all their differences, Izzy has always had the ability to command a room, just like Tony. It’s how Jim had first met her, when she’d walked into that bar, and ever since then, he’s been drawn to her orbit almost helplessly.

“The survivors said the ones who got Snapped were lucky. But the survivors knew what they lost. We never did, not until it was too late.”

He’s always sensed when she enters a room, even if he couldn’t see her immediately. It’s how he’d known almost immediately when Izzy had snuck into the server rooms where he’d been with Johnson - even when his conscious mind had been struggling to adapt to her presence in a universe that she hadn’t existed in for five years.

“I got Snapped out of existence by a genocidal alien and was resurrected five years later to fight that same guy. And they say we won. From where you and I are standing, it sure as hell doesn’t feel like that.”

The very worst day of his life had been when he’d watched his wife crumble to nothingness even as he reached for her helplessly. There hadn’t even been a body to bury. She’d returned five years later only for him to watch as, once again, she got attacked in the exact same way by a supposed ally - her molecules being scattered by a powerful force.

For a moment, he’d drawn some very unfortunate comparisons between Thanos and Agent Johnson. He’d wondered whether he had always been fated to lose her to nothingness.

Izzy is still speaking, her hands are still raised but they’re spread wide. “You’re not a secessionist, are you, Fred? No, you don’t give a damn about the UNAS - the Freedoms First just got you in through the front door.”

The world gets darker, colder the closer she inches towards Moppino. He’s still alert, his gun still pointed towards her, but he’s also hypnotized by her words. Behind him, the black clouds loom threateningly and seem much closer to the ark.

“Let me guess - you probably approached them as a scientist, pretending to be enthralled with their cause, showing them what you could build. Showing them your inventions, your bombs that could take out even shielded arc reactors.”

Moppino is sweating profusely, even though the temperature’s gone down. He wipes at his forehead and blinks at the wetness. “What - what?”

Izzy’s fingers twitch. The wind is picking up, blowing hair into their faces. “We couldn’t find it, you know. The fifth bomb. And Rhodey’s belief that it might be on the bridge was good. But what would be the point of that?”

“And then I saw you all here through that camera,” she points towards a lens on the outer wall without looking. “That peashooter you’re holding isn’t going to stop my husband from tackling you, so it had to be something else, something _worse._ ”

Moppino is shaking his head, but she doesn’t stop talking. “We were never going to find the fifth bomb in any of the rooms because it was never in the Ark, was it?” 

She points directly at his chest.

“It was always on you.”

Moppino is shivering now, goosebumps bursting across his skin, and his lips are turning blue, even though sweat is pouring down his body in rivulets. “What… what’s happening to me?” He gasps.

“It’s a bad day to be in New York, Fred,” Izzy’s voice plummets from empathizing to icy. “The Statue of Liberty’s gotten blown up, a Helicarrier got hijacked, and oh - looks like it’s going to be _pouring like a bitch._ ”

Fred’s eyes snap to hers, and he opens his mouth in alarm, only to be interrupted by a harsh, incessant beeping coming from his chest. 

**_The pressure threshold._ **

Fred blinks down at himself almost comically, and that’s when Izzy snaps her wrists.

Almost instantly, a large sphere of ice, tinged with faint streaks of red, snaps into being around Fred and the bomb he’s got strapped to his chest - altered from all the moisture and vapor she’s extracted from the atmosphere, from the dark clouds - heavily pregnant with _water_ and _ice crystals_.

It hadn’t been sweat.

Just ordinary _condensation_.

She flings her arms upward and the sphere shoots skyward, as though fired by a cannon.

She hits the floor when it detonates, and the explosion blinds him, but Rhodey’s always, _always known_ where she is at any time, so he lets his instincts carry him to her.

Catching her as she sinks into his arms feels like absolution.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Marvel Comics Context:** The Statue of Liberty was once destroyed by a man named Moppino who blew it up with an atom expander ray. Never read it myself, but the coincidence was eerie, so I decided to flesh out his backstory, make him a little more sympathetic. 
> 
> Let me know your thoughts in the comments down below.


	4. Born to Endless Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world's reaction to two consecutive terrorist attacks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slightly shorter chapter this time around. Enjoy!

_Some to Misery are Born_

_Every Morn and every Night_

_Some are Born to sweet delight_

_…_

_Some are Born to Endless Night_

\- Auguries of Innocence; William Blake 

###  **November 1st, 2023**

**Med-Bay, the Ark**

“ _Agent_ _Collins_ ,” Coulson says as he walks into the Ark’s med bay, and there’s this characteristic deceptively mild tone in his voice that she’d learned early on in their relationship to read as _beyond incredibly pissed._

She fights the urge to sigh and plasters on a blank expression. She doesn’t care much about dignity, which is a blessing because there’s none to be had wearing hospital gowns. 

“You are _supposed_ to be resting.”

“I’m _fine_ , I’ve been injured worse before…”

“Severe dehydration, deep cuts, and contusions across seventy-percent of your body, dislocated shoulder, left ankle sprain and that’s not including all the injuries you sustained during the Battle of Earth and the Battle of Wakanda,” Coulson glares as he reads aloud the medical charts Simmons had prepared. “The Blip didn’t magically heal you. It brought you back _exactly_ the way you left - broken bones, internal bleeding, and all. You’re so far from fine it’s a miracle you know the meaning of the word.”

“Drop me in the Hudson, or better yet, the Atlantic,” she retorts. “Three hours in the ocean and I’ll be golden.”

“You keep taxing your Inhuman abilities - they’re going to fail you when you need them the most.”

“That’s never happened before.”

“You’ve never been through _this much_ before.”

She opens her mouth, then shuts it and just breathes through the tightness in her chest. The boots are harder to pull on, but she’s hardly going to admit that to Coulson. “Did you need anything, _sir_?”

He nods sharply, as though she’d given him exactly what he‘d expected. “Yes, actually. Much as I wish I could just force you to stay here for the next three days, I won’t inflict that on the doctors.”

She looks up sharply. “You have a mission for me?”

“The Ark was supposed to be your first assignment,” he says. “Your relationship with Manswell notwithstanding, I figured you’d be the specialist best suited for dealing with the kind of situations we saw today. Of course, we never expected it to happen so quickly _or_ escalate so terribly.”

“You… _wanted_ me to watch over the Ark?”

He shrugs. “As soon as the world found out the truth about Exodus, Manswell and his Ark were going to be at risk. Your actions today proved that I’d chosen the correct operative for the job.”

“That was Johnson, not me.”

“You kept the Fighters at bay long enough for her to perform her magic. Even she admits that.” He sighs. “I wrongly estimated we’d have more time, but I never expected it to occur on the heels of a terrorist attack massive enough to spark the Second American Civil War.”

“So the War is definitely happening?”

He nods. “The President’s gonna issue a speech.”

“I’m coming with,” she says, already climbing up. Coulson makes an aborted motion, and she pins him with a look. “The wheelchair’s not happening - I can _walk_.”

* * *

Rhodey’s mouth is set in a grim line as he watches her approach with Coulson in tow. Manswell and Talbot are with him.

She hadn’t noticed before, too dazed in the immediate aftermath of tossing an exploding bomb into the stratosphere, but Manzee looks _old._ His hair and short beard have more white than blond in them, and his dark blue eyes are shadowed with weariness.

They brighten slightly when they see her, and she obediently slips into his open arms. She doesn’t want to - his arms around her feel no better than Aunt Jan’s had - but like before, appearances must be kept. 

She doesn’t meet Rhodey’s eyes as she withdraws from the embrace far too soon.

“Izzy,” Manzee says, cupping her face. His hands feel leathered and wrinkled, and she has to remind herself that he _was_ once younger than her. “It’s good to see you. I’m so sorry about Tony. He’ll be missed.”

Her legs lock up, and the cold returns with a vengeance, stealing over her lungs and leaving her breathless. “Good to see you too, Manzee,” she forces out. She doesn’t smile.

“You sure S.H.I.E.L.D. is a good idea? I’m from DC - the Potomac still bears scars,” he asks, uncaring that the Director of the very same organization he’s famous for publicly deriding is standing at his shoulder.

“You sure _this_ is a good idea,” she retorts, circling a finger in the air. “Especially after what almost happened today?”

“It’s exactly _because_ of this that I gotta leave. That man, Fred Moppino? He was… disturbed, but he wasn’t wrong. Earth is no longer safe, hasn’t been safe since the New York Invasion.”

“Out there isn’t going to be much better, Manzee.”

He looks at her for a long moment. “Jake didn’t survive the Decimation,” he says finally. “I thought that was the worst thing that could happen but - the Blip brought him back. Right in the middle of the interstate. He got run over by a truck.”

Isabelle closes her eyes, her throat thick. 

“Jesus, I’m sorry, Vic,” Rhodey whispers.

“These things keep coming. Loki, the Chitauri, that attack on London, _Thanos_ \- who came twice! It’ll never end. Nothing good can come of staying on Earth. I’m getting my kids out before something worse comes along and kills them too.”

“Nothing can be worse than Thanos,” she finds herself saying.

He gives her a look that is so full of pity it makes her want to break something. “You can’t honestly be that naive, Izzy.”

“Perhaps we can concentrate on what we’re here for,” Coulson finally intervenes, his eyes intense.

Manswell nods and ushers them all into a conference room. “We can watch the speech through here - it’s bound to be memorable.”

She heads for the back wall, grabbing a glass of water to soothe her parched throat. Her fingers tremble and her skin feels too dry - maybe there _was_ something to Simmons’ dehydration diagnosis. 

It doesn’t take long for the conference hall to fill up. Thankfully, they keep their distance from her.

The constant whispers are giving her a headache though. She’s starting to think staying at the med bay would’ve been a better idea. She fights down the urge to rub at her temples and focuses on Coulson and Talbot. 

“Ellis Blipped back directly on top of President Kelly in the Oval Office on the 17th,” Talbot is saying. “The security detail almost riddled him with holes before Kelly could calm them down.”

“Huh,” Coulson mutters. “Guess he’s not doing too good after, well, everything.”

Isabelle closes her eyes, suppressing a sigh. Matthew Ellis, the former President, might’ve been Snapped, but his First Lady and their daughter weren’t. They had been in a limo, heading to the White House, when their driver had crumbled to ash. The out of control limo had promptly been crushed under a huge, equally driverless tank.

Bruce snapping his fingers hadn’t been the be-all-end-all the Avengers had envisioned. There had been victims of Thanos that the Blip hadn’t brought back, would never bring back.

“Don’t play coy, Phil. I’m sure your spies in the White House would’ve already told you all of this.”

The Director shakes his head. “Haven’t been able to get my people into the House since the Snap. Kelly keeps his people on a tighter leash than his predecessor. And his dislike of S.H.I.E.L.D. is legendary.”

“Even though one of your best agents lost her life saving his?”

A dark shadow crosses Coulson’s face. “Agent Rodriguez’s sacrifice is the only reason why Robert Kelly even allows S.H.I.E.L.D. to _exist_ right now. His personal gratitude towards her did not, unfortunately, decrease his wariness towards our organization as a whole.”

Talbot scowls. “Can you blame him?” he mutters. “Don’t think I don’t see what you did here, Coulson. This room is missing a member of your team. I appreciate the gesture, but I prefer to have my eyes _on_ Daisy Johnson when we’re in the same space.”

“Sorry, Glenn. I was trying to be considerate. And so was she.”

“Well, she can be considerate _in front of me_."

Coulson nods and they exchange a few words before Talbot moves away, muttering discontentedly. The Director looks over to her, and she doesn’t know what he sees in her face that makes it look like an invitation, but the next thing she knows, he’s standing by her, staring at the blank screen.

“It was an LMD,” he says. 

“What’s an LMD?” she asks quietly.

“It wasn’t Daisy who shot Talbot - it was an LMD. They proved it in a trial during the Decimation and issued a posthumous acquittal,” Coulson explains, leaning against the wall. “He knows, and he’s forgiven her, but…” he shrugs.

“But what _is_ an LMD?”

“Oh,” he says sheepishly. “Life-Model Decoy.” At her raised eyebrow, he sighs. “Robots with our faces on them.”

“Robots don’t have enough autonomy to go around shooting people.”

“Robots controlled by a rogue AI do.”

Isabelle stiffens. “Someone made another ULTRON?” She banishes the sudden echo of soulless, metallic fingers around her throat.

He hesitates, sensing that he’s stepped on a landmine. Or a field of them. “It’s a long story. I’ll send you the reports.”

“The reports always leave something out. I’d rather hear it from you, sir,” and she knows her voice is tight, too tight, but she’s been fighting to prevent this for years now, fighting and killing and blackmailing and bargaining with the world, ever since Sokovia, while Tony had been doing the same in the political spheres, with Potts and Rhodey providing backup from their own respective fields.

She had barely managed to put out the fires after ULTRON and the Civil War before Thanos arrived and she lost five years. Then she returns only to lose a whole lot more and finds out that all of it had been for _nothing_ because clearly people don’t learn from the mistakes of others - they had to make their own brand new and still uncomfortably, _painfully_ old ones before the lessons are finally hammered into them.

He looks at her for a long moment, before nodding. 

“It’s starting,” someone shouts from the front, and Isabelle turns to the screen, struggling to keep the cold at bay.

She focuses more on the tension between Ellis and Kelly than the actual speech itself.

A few months ago by her perspective - and almost six years by the world’s - Robert Kelly and Matthew Ellis had been as thick as thieves; a loyalty that had stood the test of time since their college years. Kelly had been Ellis’ biggest supporter, and vice versa.

After the disaster with the former VP Rodriguez’s dealings with Aldrich Killian during the Extremis fiasco, Ellis had consolidated and solidified his power - with Kelly a stalwart supporter by his side.

Not anymore. Now Ellis stands _behind_ Kelly, silent and grim. There’s something awful and rotting between the two that she can’t quite place, not without context.

Coulson shifts beside her, and she can tell from his frown that he’s caught it too.

 _“The Decimation, and its aftermath -,”_ Kelly is saying; the audience, armed before him with cameras and candles, deathly silent, _“ - have made us weaker, as a nation and as a species. It’s true. You know it, I know it - the world knows it.”_

_“Five years ago, I wouldn’t have opened your eyes to this - but if the Decimation has taught us anything, it’s that we are capable of handling horrifying truths. We are capable of enduring the most terrible and unimaginable of events, and emerging from it stronger. Scarred, yes. Exhausted, absolutely. But not broken. Never broken.”_

_“The Freedoms First thought that they could protest this union by committing not one act of terrorism, but two. They thought that their sacrilege would stop human progress, that it would return us to the Dark Ages. Well, they thought wrong.”_

He pauses and takes a deep breath, and it seems like Kelly looks right at her, through the screen. _“There was a man we all looked up to -,”_ he says, driving the breath from her lungs, _“ - to protect and defend us, whether it be via clean energy or within a suit of armor, whether it be from terrorists or aliens. He protected us for years, and he gave his life so we could have ours.”_

_“Iron Man is gone. And we are vulnerable. But I promise you, that status will not last. We will show the Freedoms First, and any other terrorists lurking in the shadows, and any aliens out there - we will not bend, we will not break.”_

_“You destroy our statues, extinguish our torches? We_ will _rage against the dying of the light. You kill our best? We will retaliate so hard you’ll never walk again. This, I swear.”_

The audience, and the conference room, explodes in cheers.

 _“Good night and God bless the_ United North American States _.”_

* * *

Despite her best efforts, she finds herself stuck in a room alone with Rhodey.

“S.H.I.E.L.D.,” he murmurs, and he’s never been one to beat around the bush. She’s always liked that about him, and likes it now too - they can at least rip off the bandage this way.

“S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Isabelle agrees.

“When you told me you got offered a new job, I didn’t think it’d be this. Why didn’t you tell me?” 

His eyes have dropped all pretense, and he’s pleading, trying desperately to understand, and she’s seen that look far too often in the years before the Decimation. Predictably, it forms a bitter taste in her mouth.

“Why didn’t you tell me Coulson was alive?”

It’s not the right thing to say, but there was never anything she could’ve said anyway. He exhales shakily. “I _would have_ \- if you’d _told_ me you were reinstating!”

There’s silence. “I didn’t want you to stop me,” she finally admits.

“Of course I would’ve stopped you - it’s _S.H.I.E.L.D_ !” He throws up his hands and stalks over to her. “Don’t you remember the last time you were with them? It almost destroyed you - _us_!”

“You’re working with them too.”

“ _I_ don’t have a choice!”

“And I don’t have anything _else_!”

She’s breathing heavily and he just looks at her for a long, tense moment. “You have _me_ ,” he says finally, trembling fingers reaching out to brush gently across her cheeks, as though he can’t quite tell whether she’s real or not. 

She’s been repulsed by everyone who’s tried to touch her since the funeral, but Jim is so gentle, so hesitant that something cracks inside her. Her eyes flutter shut and she leans into his palm.

**_Just a few seconds longer._ **

“I can’t lose you too,” he whispers, and she feels the words pressed against her mouth more than hears them.

She can’t find it in herself to tell him that there’s too little of her left anyway.

* * *

“Rhodes,” Talbot says as they enter the deck. “We’re being called in. Fighting’s already broken out in the Texan Megapolis and Washington.”

“Are we being ordered to put out the fires or make some, Major?” Rhodes asks. His face is a mask.

“Guess we’ll know when we get there.” He nods towards the Quinjet. “Your suit’s already inside. Collins - got some orders for you from the President too. He agrees with Coulson - the Ark is the best place for you.”

She nods, unsurprised. 

“It’ll depart in three months,” the Director cuts in, “but just because we thwarted one attempt to blow it up doesn’t mean there won’t be more. You’ll be in charge of the security detail.”

Talbot suddenly stiffens, and Isabelle turns to watch as Daisy Johnson steps into view. She hesitates for a moment when she spots the Major, then visibly steels herself and walks over to them. 

Coulson continues as though there hadn’t been an interruption. “Agent Johnson is going to be shoring up the Ark’s cyber-defenses as much as possible before the Exodus. She’s going to split her time between the Lighthouse and here, as will Colonel Rhodes.”

There’s an uncomfortable silence for a moment, as though none of them are particularly eager to leave but also don’t want to spend too much time with each other. It’s Johnson who finally breaks it.

“ _Major…_ ”

Talbot holds up a hand, suddenly looking very, very tired. “Listen, Agent Johnson. I’ve had five years to come to terms with the fact that it wasn’t you. But it’s still difficult to look at your face.”

The President had been right. No one has the inclination to be delicate anymore. Johnson flushes crimson.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have better things to do today.”

“I… yes, Major. I’m sorry.”

He sighs, turns away. “So am I, Daisy - so am I. Let’s go, Rhodes.”

Johnson slips away but Coulson lingers with Isabelle on the deck until the Quinjet is out of sight.

“He’ll be fine,” he says, and she can’t tell whether he’s trying to comfort her or himself.

She stays silent and walks over to the edge of the deck. He doesn’t try to stop her, but she does hear his sharp inhale. 

The clouds are still thick - she can’t see the Hudson from up here. 

But she can _feel_ it. 

“Isabelle,” he calls, and for the first time, he truly looks at her.

And worse, he lets her see him.

He looks tired, no, _drained_. As though every inch of fluid from his body has been removed, and he’s just muscle and bones somehow being animated. 

She hates that she knows what that feels like. She doesn’t want anything in common with him, not anymore.

“It’s good to see you again,” he whispers.

For an instant, the cracks on the inside reflect on the outside as her expression breaks. She isn’t fast enough to hide it from Coulson, and she suspects, nor does she want to. “Wish I could say the same, sir,” she says just as quietly and steps off the edge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Mass Effect Context:** I decided to create a backstory for Victor Manswell from the context of a post-Decimation universe because the Snap and the Blip do have a massive impact that I'm not going to shy away from. Everything that these past few chapters have been dealing with - the formation of the UNAS, the Manswell Expedition, the hijack - are all results of Thanos' actions, have all happened due to the frankly unimaginable agony caused by the death of half the universe.
> 
> The formation of the UNAS also merged some cities together. The Texan Megapolis consists of Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio, among others.
> 
> A/N: Hope you enjoyed this chapter! Please leave reviews so I know your thoughts!
> 
> Let me know your reviews for this upload!


	5. Upon Whose Brow Famine had Written Fiend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A high priority SOS from the Director of a sister division turns into a horrifying ordeal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter uploaded! Much thanks to the best beta reader in the world, ElessarII! You, my friend, have the patience of a saint.
> 
> [02.01.2021] EDIT: I've overhauled this chapter to better fit where I'm taking this story. Old readers - apologies for the inconvenience. New readers - hope you enjoy the story.
> 
> Let me know your thoughts in the comments down below.

_… and beheld_

_Each other's aspects—saw, and shriek'd, and died—_

_Even of their mutual hideousness they died,_

_Unknowing who he was upon whose brow_

_Famine had written Fiend._

\- Darkness, Lord Byron

###  **April 8th, 2024**

####  **The Lighthouse, S.H.I.E.L.D. HEADQUARTERS**

**LOCATION: CLASSIFIED**

Coulson’s waiting for her with a StarkPad when she emerges from the showers.

She had known, somewhere deep down in her fugue of fighting and killing, that she had been due for a visit sooner or later. She has been so focused on missions she hadn’t even realized when Christmas or the New Year had gone by. Her phone is flooded with unread texts and voicemails.

“You haven’t been sleeping,” he says as she moves to take the tablet from him without a word.

He tugs it out of reach.

Coulson is clearly done pulling his punches.

So she points to the swimming pool behind her and says, “I don’t need to.”

She won’t sleep, not today. Because she knows what day it is. She remembers what happened six years ago today, and she has fought the urge to examine herself every few seconds to make sure she’s in one piece.

“Recuperating at the bottom of the pool and emptying it after every mission is not sleeping,” Coulson says mildly. “That’s the equivalent of chugging gallons of coffee and claiming you’re on top of the world.”

This conversation is heading dangerously towards the kind of banter they used to engage in when she still trusted him.

“Fortunately, I can’t get addicted to the water,” she replies shortly. “What’s my next mission, Director?”

The Second Civil War continues to rage across the continent. Governments all over are stretched too thin trying to put out metaphorical - and sometimes all too literal - fires to bother paying attention to individuals taking advantage of the chaos to further their own nefarious plans.

She’s been fighting all her life, so S.H.I.E.L.D. throws her at the newest villain of the week, knowing that she will fight to win. Most days, she doesn’t even bother using her abilities - punching and kicking and shooting works just as well, and is incredibly more satisfying.

If she hits, she doesn’t hurt, and that’s all she cares for.

Coulson stares at her and his jaw works for a moment. “An SOS from a sister division,” he says finally.

Isabelle tilts her head. “Not my usual brand of assignment, sir. What’s changed?”

“What’s changed is that you’ve been a zombie since the Ark departed,” he snaps. “You don’t sleep, you barely eat, and you aren’t taking any of the mandatory breaks between your missions. Every partner I’ve assigned to you has reported complaints of your violent and unstable behavior and has asked to be reassigned, or, in one case, even requested that you be transferred to another division!”

He doesn’t need to specify who had made that last request.

Coulson’s idea of ‘building camaraderie via common enemy’ has fallen flat. Daisy Johnson is no closer to accepting her as she was - however long it’s been since the Manswell mission - Isabelle is pretty sure the forced exposure has instead driven a deeper rift between what was already a pretty hostile relationship.

Agent Johnson doesn’t trust her, Isabelle doesn’t care, and it’s starting to affect their performance in the field. If they’d been human, they’d have already come to blows to let off some steam, but with their respective abilities, they’d end up sinking half the Eastern Seaboard by the time they’re done airing out all their grievances.

She doesn’t react to his accusations. It’s not as if she wasn’t expecting them, after all. “I don’t think any of those things have affected _my_ _individual_ performance in the field, Director.”

“That’s the problem. You’re _too_ good. Minimum collateral damage is a concept you seem to have completely forgotten, so much so that your partners are forced to pick up the slack! You’re rapidly approaching the line where you’re a liability!”

She has developed a rather nice balance between her work and her downtime. Early on, she discovered that the numbness was unsustainable in the long run, so she compromised. She would unleash all her emotions out in the field and when she returned to the Lighthouse, she’d shut that flood behind an impenetrable wall of numbness. It’s worked out well so far.

But Coulson’s words are like a hammer to that wall, and she is beginning to feel a hint of rage seeping through the cracks. “You knew what you were getting into the moment you accepted me into your command,” she says, not bothering to hide the edge in her voice.

He doesn’t back down, though. “I did. Which is why I’m not inflicting you on anyone else for this mission.”

Isabelle blinks. “You’re sending me solo?”

He grins, and she realizes in that instant that she fell into the trap he laid out for her as easily as though she’d been led to it. “No, Agent Collins. _I’m coming with you._ ”

* * *

It doesn’t take long for her to realize that when Coulson had said - _I’m coming with you_ \- he actually meant _I’m coming with you both._

She’s claimed the corner of the monitoring station as her own, from where she can see the wall of screens gathered around the Director.

There’s an image of a dark-skinned, dark-haired beauty on one of the screens. Tattoos of occult symbols disappear down her arms. Her face is stern, unsmiling, but Isabelle imagines her to be always moving - an avatar of action.

“Director Pandora Peters, of the W.A.N.D. division of S.H.I.E.L.D,” Coulson is saying. “We received a high priority alert from their HQ this morning. Very few details - but there’s a high degree of possibility that the distress might be caused by an 0-8-4 Peters was investigating.”

“W.A.N.D.?” Isabelle asks from her corner.

He swipes at an interface and a new projection rolls out on the screen. It displays a world map - the cities of Hong-Kong, New York and London are circled in red, connected by pulsing lines, themselves bisected by thinner links to other cities all over the globe. Photos and videos pop out of the circles over major cities, lingering for a moment before being drowned by the influx of other data streams.

“Ever since S.H.I.E.L.D. started, we’ve categorized almost every inexplicable entity that has crossed our desks,” Coulson explains. “0-8-4s turned out to be weapons, energy sources… even people. We’ve had Inhumans, Enhanced, Gifted… aliens.”

He takes a deep breath. “One thing I realized during the Decimation - we failed to categorize an ability shared among quite a few people across the known universe.”

Isabelle knows where this is going. “ _Magic_.” She takes a deep breath. “W.A.N.D. was created to investigate the _Infinity Stones._ ” Her words ring like gunshots in the room; everyone flinches.

“Among other things, yes,” he admits. “During the Decimation, S.H.I.E.L.D. and various other agencies were looking for any way to reverse the Snap. We pooled in all of our resources and came up with one outlandish idea after another… Magic fell within the purview of the Wizardry Alchemy Necromancy Department; a bridge between S.H.I.E.L.D. and the sorcerers we had on call.”

There’s a silence as once again, the line dividing the Snapped and the Survivors becomes blindingly obvious.

“If magic is involved, can’t sorcerers just portal in?” Johnson points out.

“Their base is old, Daisy. It’s always had strong wards preventing rogue teleportation - a necessity considering the importance of their research. Of course, Wong didn’t anticipate it being used _against_ him when he offered it to us.”

That name pings Isabelle’s radar. “Wong?” She asks evenly. “Master of the Mystic Arts Wong? He’s your expert advisor on all things magical?”

Coulson turns and nods. “We’ve had a good relationship going for the past five years as we tried to find a way to bring you all back. Decided to continue it even after the Battle of Earth.”

“Is Stephen Strange going to be there too?”

Coulson is the only one who notices the way her voice becomes a few degrees cooler, and that’s only because he knows her too well. He doesn’t react except for a slight tightening around his eyes and shakes his head. “Our last communication with Wong indicated Strange has not yet returned to the Sanctum or any of the other known sorcerer bases since Stark’s funeral.”

Isabelle’s chest grows cold.

Coulson breaks the quiet. “An 0-8-4 that can give _Pandora Peters_ trouble isn’t something we can just foist off to the Sanctums to deal with internally. Wong will meet us there; hopefully, he’ll be able to fill in some of the holes.”

“I’ll prep the Quinjet,” Johnson nods. “Where are we headed?”

He grins suddenly. “You’ll like this one.”

“I call it the _Castle_.”

* * *

####  **The Castle, S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ, W.A.N.D DIVISION.**

**LOCATION: CLASSIFIED.**

The wine-colored sky is lit up with lightning by the time the Quinjet makes its way to the Castle.

“Can’t believe you had Hogwarts as a potential base of operations and decided to go for the Lighthouse,” Daisy murmurs as they approach the cliffs.

They flinch as the auto-pilot directs them at the unyielding vertical face of the cliff. Just when it seems like they’re about to slam headfirst, the rock face shimmers like a staticky image, and the pixels reveal to show a huge opening carved directly through the middle of the face, leading to an aircraft hangar.

“That’s why we didn’t choose the Castle,” Coulson points out. “I don’t want to have to remind myself that we are not actually going to be pulverized every time we land.”

Daisy rolls her eyes. Collins, ignoring them with an ease that speaks of long practice, has already unbuckled herself and is waiting for the cargo doors to open.

The hangar is modern, in stark contrast with the fairytale-like castle she had gotten a glimpse of amidst the thunderstorm. The walls and the ceiling are all rough rock, damp and lit with the glow of fluorescent lights. A few holograms bob against the walls. At the other end of the hangar, there are massive metallic doors.

“This doesn’t look like much of a castle,” Daisy mutters doubtfully.

“Well, there aren’t any moving staircases or talking portraits, sorry to disappoint. But it is a real castle, and an old one,” Coulson confirms, swiping at his prosthetic hand interface. The rear doors of the Quinjet close with a low groan. “S.H.I.E.L.D. has been trying to find out who built it for years now, and our working theory is that sorcerers were involved. Of course, Wong refuses to comment, but that just reinforces my belief.”

“Director Coulson?” An unfamiliar voice calls out. A bald man in brown robes emerges from the shadows, his gaze flickering to Collins’ briefly. “You made good time; I wasn’t expecting you so soon.”

“I’m eager for some answers, Wong,” he says. “What’d you have?”

“Very little from here - but silence and stillness rarely bode well in such a situation. Unfortunately, I didn’t have your Director authorization codes to investigate further,” he admits, nodding to the doors.

“We’ll figure out something that doesn’t involve you being locked out of your own base after this is over,” Coulson promises, walking over and looks at a face scanner.

“ _Say cheese_ ,” an artificial female voice echoes in the empty hangar. A holographic red light emerges and scans their faces, turning green an instant later.

“Any tips you’d like to share?” Daisy asks as the elevator doors close.

Golden mandalas erupt from raised fists.

_“Expect nothing.”_

* * *

The contrast between the hangar and the Castle proper is never more apparent than when Daisy feels as though she’s stepped onto another world.

What was once an atrium - and she’s got Hogwarts stuck in her head now, so she mentally renames it to the Great Hall - has been revamped into a central command station. An elaborate silver stand cradles a massive orrery. Constructed of strange, kaleidoscopic fractals, they reflect the faint moonlight from a distant skylight.

Rows of bookshelves are interrupted by strange, runed machinery wired to surprisingly modern screens. Workstations are scattered with ancient books and scrolls. Holograms float in the air, being tossed back and forth between operatives on different floors, reached by stairs - stone, winding - on either side of the Hall.

A bustling, active base with no sign of distress.

Daisy feels something crawl down her spine and cranes her neck upwards. No, she thinks, absolutely nothing out of the ordinary - except for how every single agent turns and stares at them unblinkingly.

A thick bubble of anticipatory silence descends upon their group. As though they exist outside of time - breathlessly waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“Turns out -,” Coulson drawls, though there’s a thin layer of tension laced in his words, “ - _nothing_ is pretty accurate. Wong?”

Wong’s mandalas flicker and die. He cautiously steps out of the bubble - Collins makes an aborted motion towards him, as though tamping down on a sudden urge to yank him back. Daisy can’t blame her - her skin is prickling with the awareness of hundreds of eyes.

But nothing happens.

“I… am unsure,” the sorcerer says uneasily, eyes rapidly flicking all over the place. He strides over to one of the workstations, brow furrowing as he examines the thick volumes and unrolled scrolls scattered amongst datapads. “These… are spells of forbidden magic. Meant to summon eldritch horrors and cosmic obscenities.” His fingers reach out to brush the pages -

Only to startle as a whip of fiery golden light snaps out from the crowd of unnervingly silent onlookers to tether his wrist.

It’s a strange thing, Daisy thinks, dream-like, even as Coulson and Collins raise their guns - a strip of magic, emitting sparks almost like a live wire with serrated edges. She has seen it only once before - a year ago, or seven, depending on one’s perspective - but that had looked more substantial than pure golden light…

“That does not belong to you,” a devastatingly familiar voice orders, snapping Daisy out of the strange trance she’d fallen into. The agent who emerges is young, barely into his twenties. His familiar - _older_ \- face is blank, almost wooden, fingers steady around his eldritch whip as he advances towards Wong. “Step _away_.”

“Gabe?” Daisy calls, her voice echoing in the silent, cavernous space of the Great Hall. She takes a half-step towards the kid she’d never thought to see again, the kid whose existence had been buried beneath politics, imprisonment, and the Decimation. “Gabriel Reyes, is that you?”

When she finally moves, she practically sprints across the floor, jolting to a stop just before she crashes into him. “What are you _doing_ here? How are you _walking_?” The surge of relief breaks off just as abruptly as it had started when she realizes he doesn’t seem to have even heard her, his eyes fixed unblinkingly at Wong. “Gabe?”

Wong, to his credit, doesn’t seem all that bothered. “The flesh-bound _Grimoire Verum_ ,” he points to one of the thick tomes. “The Book of Eibon. The Black Sea Scrolls.” The last one is conspicuous; a black-as-ebony, ancient, rolled-up parchment, with a script that seems to glow as though written by fiery ink.

“These are kept locked deep within the Kamar-Taj library. As _I_ am the librarian,” he says, somewhat acerbically, “ - they _do_ belong to me, Disciple Reyes.”

**_Disciple…?_ **

“Daisy…” Coulson calls warningly.

“Step away,” Gabe repeats. There’s something hollow, vacant in his entire posture. Not like a paraplegic who’s miraculously walking, but almost like something is puppeteering him. She shivers. “You do not belong here.”

Wong tugs at the whip. Gabe almost falls over, then straightens himself with the same, eerie look. “Where is Pandora?”

“Director Peters is currently indisposed. We’re done now,” he monotones, and with a wave of his hand, the whip disappears. Daisy spots deep, red gashes on Wong’s wrist before it disappears beneath his robes. “ _Step away._ ”

She finally finds her voice. “What’s wrong with him?” She asks, backing away. After a moment, Wong follows her.

“I suspect the same thing that’s wrong with all of them,” he murmurs. He exchanges a loaded look with Coulson as they enter the bubble that no longer feels as safe as it had five minutes ago. “We need to find Peters.”

“ _Now_.”

* * *

####  **The Observatory**

They find her in the dome-shaped Observatory.

Built into the peak of the tallest tower, half of the dome’s golden, arch-paneled walls are spelled to reflect the cosmos, bursting into life in real-time. Nebulae pulse as multi-colored clouds of dust, distant stars are born and die almost simultaneously, galaxies spin around an invisible axis, before colliding in a tsunami of light.

Holographic mandala crosshairs manifest across the illusion, reminding Isabelle of nothing so much as a magical tracking algorithm.

The rest of the Observatory wouldn’t be out of place in a hoarder’s wet dream. Thick tomes are arranged haphazardly in alarmingly tilted towers while scrolls are hastily shoved into huge vases. The single, wooden workstation is littered with vials containing suspicious liquids, strange, silver instruments that tinkle at their approach, and a dull, crystal ball resting on a stand.

And in the center of it all is a blue pillar of light, within which a familiar, dark-skinned woman hovers, limp and curled almost fetal-like.

“What is it?” Johnson whispers, sounding still somewhat shaken by her encounter with her old friend.

“ _Shield of Seraphim._ A barrier that acts as fortification and prison, all at once,” Wong explains, striding forward confidently. “A last resort of sorts, to stave off enemies at the cost of immobilizing the caster.” He raises his hands, fingers moving in specific patterns. The curtain flickers beneath his administrations. “It can be removed only by an acceptable allied magical signature.”

‘ _Such as mine’_ goes unspoken as the barrier falls. Pandora Peters hovers for a microsecond longer before collapsing in a heap at his feet.

A borderline-hysterical laugh shudders through her as she attempts to get her breath under control. “Took you long enough,” she says hoarsely, staring up at Wong.

“Tell us what happened here,” he orders, making no move to help when she pushes herself up.

“Your S.O.S mentioned an 0-8-4…?” Coulson’s voice is gentler.

“The Eternal Eye,” Peters replies, nodding. Her voice is gravelly, though Isabelle can’t distinguish whether it’s natural or a result of her extended imprisonment. “A relic of a forgotten civilization, discovered by our founder Agamotto in his exploits across the galaxy.”

“He claimed it was evil and tried to bend him to its will. His magic wasn’t powerful enough to combat it, so he bound it instead, creating an impenetrable shield around it so it could never again spread its corruption.”

Isabelle stiffens. Her skin is prickling; the way it always does when she feels like she’s being watched by something she can’t see. With one ear on the conversation, she keeps her eyes peeled for any automaton agent to jump out from the dark shadows of the room.

“What kind of evil?” Coulson asks.

“All he wrote about it was that it ‘ _sees all, knows all, wants all._ ’” Wong replies. “You broke the shielding, didn’t you? I assume by the books I found downstairs that you tried to reverse-engineer the artifact by diving into it with _magic_.”

“Yes,” Peters nods, either not reading the cold tone in Wong’s voice or deliberately ignoring it. “The _Chart of the Cosmos_ ,” she gestures to the bespelled walls, “ - narrowed down my attempts to find the entity behind the Eye.”

She exhales heavily. “But it found us first. It enthralled my agents, turned them against me.”

Isabelle inches towards the workstation, eyes absently cataloging all that she can use as an improvised weapon. Her eyes are drawn to the opalescent sphere resting innocuously on a rusted stand. It is unlike anything she’s ever seen - glowing and pulsing with strange curtains of light, like the _aurora borealis_ trapped within the ocean.

An unexplained chill runs down her spine.

“Mind manipulation is _dark magic_ , Master Peters. You were taught better than that.”

Isabelle is frozen. Her stomach is tied up in knots.

“I was taught to anticipate and remove threats _before_ they were set loose upon the world, which is what I was attempting!”

Her breath catches in her chest. There’s a darkness that’s encroaching in her vision, and the swirling lights inside the sphere seem to be the only source of illumination. The light at the end of the tunnel.

She can’t tear her eyes off it.

“Collins…?” Coulson’s voice pierces through the veil of whispers descending upon Isabelle’s mind. For a moment, for a _single_ moment, she listens to her screaming instincts and raises her gun, but it’s _just so heavy_.

“And how has that worked out for you? You should not have attempted this alone!”

Hot, thick blood trickles down her nose. Time slows down; everything seems drawn out and so… _very… distant._

“I _didn’t!_ ” Pandora says.

“It took Reyes first.”

The sphere pulses. Isabelle’s gun clatters to the ground.

Her last thought before the energy hits her is that the whispers sound oddly like the ocean.

* * *

Phil was already moving by the time he saw strange, multicolored lightning grab Collins, so he was able to catch her before she dropped to the ground.

“Collins!” Brushing away her hair, he tilts her head back and pinches her nose in a vain attempt to stop the bleeding. She blinks to semi-consciousness, and he spares a glare for the pulsing orb. “What the hell is that thing?”

Collins stirs, eyes seeking out and fixing unblinkingly on Pandora Peters. Phil’s stomach sinks as he places the disturbing, blank look on her face, and knows that he has his answer.

“ ** _Lies_** ,” she says, her voice double-timbered in a way Agent Reyes’ hadn’t been. She extricates herself from his arms and pulls herself up without her usual grace.

“Collins…”

“Incredible,” Peters says wonderingly. “Usually it takes days for the enthrallment to take effect. Her mind must be astonishingly susceptible to the Eye’s control.”

“Some empathy wouldn’t be amiss in this situation, Pandora,” Wong chastises.

“Yes, yes… this is very unfortunate, but we can use this,” she says, brushing him off impatiently as she strides towards the universe map. “Keep it talking, Coulson; I’m gonna use it to narrow down the search.”

“ ** _LIES!_ **”

The roar makes them all flinch backward. Daisy has a palm out, ready to Quake the Eye’s thrall to kingdom come. Collins’s - no, not Collins, this is the Entity Peters had spoken about, advancing towards her with an enraged look on its face. Wong has his defensive mandalas raised and ready.

“What lies?” Phil blurts, fingers twitching towards his holster. “Who lied?”

“ ** _We did not take; we were_** **given** ** _,”_ **the Entity snarls.

“I don’t…”

**_“We were beyond reach, so she fed tributes to us to pursue our domain!”_ **

He grows cold.

“Is that true?” Wong demands, rounding on Peters. “Did you deliberately expose your own agents to this… _thing_?”

She blows out a noisy breath but otherwise doesn’t react. Under her ministrations, the map zooms into a vast, glowing representation of the Milky Way, with the intricate holographic crosshairs tracing the signal. “When Reyes was enthralled, I realized that the Eye generated a pulse the longer it was linked with him. If I’d pushed harder, he’d be a vegetable by now. So I… scattered the impact among the others.”

Phil’s stomach sours at the absence of even a single smidge of guilt or regret on the woman’s face. He doesn’t know her that well - Wong had been their go-to for all magical consultations - but something in him still feels betrayed.

**_“We will not be tools!”_ **

The illusion flickers. Peters glares at the Eternal Eye. “It’s resisting. Where are you?! _Tell me!_ ”

**_“Stop now. The darkness cannot be breached.”_ **

“We’ll see about that.”

Phil has had enough. Seamlessly, he takes one step forward and raises his gun, aiming for the Eye.

The twin screams of denial get cut off by a muffled boom. He is thrown to his feet as the whole world jolts alarmingly. He lands on all fours, scrabbling frantically for purchase, before grabbing onto the bolted-down desk. The quakes are powerful enough to rattle his teeth.

The Observatory is lit up with red, blaring alarms. A crack runs along the wall, breaking the illusion spell and revealing blank, featureless walls with arched panels. Books topple off shelves, raining down upon Wong and Peters, who are kneeling with hands above their heads.

Only Daisy and the Entity are still on their feet; the former with her legs spread apart, palms pointed downwards as she attempts to absorb the quakes. Sweat beads her scrunched brow.

“ ** _You’ve learned too well.”_ **

Phil’s eyes snap to the Entity, who seems utterly unbothered by the world heaving around it. It picks its way through dust and plaster, its path leading straight and true towards Pandora Peters, who vainly attempts to call forth a shield, only to cry out as ice crystallizes around her wrists.

The Entity’s eyes are glowing an inhuman blue. Freezing fingers wrap around Peters’ neck, yanking her upright, dangle her in the air easily.

“ ** _The servant of the end is here. You have brought them. You are a threat.”_ **

With a swift move, the Entity plunges an ice spike into Peters’ heart.

“ _NO!_ ” A heavy silver instrument crashes down on Wong’s head when he attempts to reach out. He crumples, unconscious.

Peters gurgles, a trickle of blood trickling down her open, gaping mouth. The Entity loosens its hold, steps over her collapsed body. Phil watches helplessly as the last of the shock and horror in her eyes fade into the emptiness of death.

He knows he should grieve Peters. But all he can think of Izzy, trapped and screaming in a body that’s no longer hers. Fighting with every inch of her life. “Let her go!” he shouts over the roaring of the earth. “She’s done nothing to you!”

“ ** _No. This vessel shapes the essence of our world. She will remain a servant of our needs._ **”

Something calm and cold settles in him. “If you take her," he whispers, " - I _will_ find you. Wherever you go, however far you run - I’ll _never_ stop hunting you.”

The Entity stills, cocks its head for a long, breathless moment, extraordinarily still even when the ground shakes beneath it. “ ** _We believe you.”_ **

It looms as it reaches for him.

The realization that he may have massively miscalculated jolts him just as painfully as the second the quakes peter out and Daisy loses all control over the vibrations.

A shockwave of incredible power erupts from her. The Entity goes flying, and Phil would’ve been tossed backward as well if he hadn’t already been half under the workstation. So he’s in a prime position to watch the Quake smash the Eternal Eye to smithereens.

He allows himself a swell of satisfaction before scrambling towards Daisy. She sags in his arms, her cheeks wet - he can’t tell if it’s with tears or sweat - and blue-black veins running down her arms.

She waves him off, attempting to catch her breath. “Might not be out of the woods yet.”

Phil nods, snatches Collins’ gun from the floor. His face is a thundercloud as he advances towards the Entity, who’s crawling along the floor to Peters’ bloody body with a possibly-genuine, shock-triggered, blank look on its face. But he’s not taking any more chances.

“Collins would rather be dead than some monster’s puppet,” he snarls, as he switches off the safety and aims. It is slow to meet his gaze. “Examine her memories. She never carries an I.C.E.R.”

“It’s me, Phil,” Izzy says, after far too long a moment. Her voice is hoarse, as though she’d been screaming on the inside, just as he’d imagined. “Just me.”

He drops to the floor, crawls up to her, ignoring the pool of blood soaking his pants. He cradles her face in his hands, the guilt and self-loathing clear in her eyes. “Wasn’t you,” he says fiercely, wondering, for the millionth time, how five minutes can make so much difference. “It wasn’t you, Izzy. Let it go.”

She swallows. “Would you be able to?”

He is spared from answering by a low groan. Wong sways as he pushes himself to his feet, the horror as his eyes follow the trail of blood shuttering behind an impressively impassive face. He carefully doesn’t look over at Collins. “The Eye?”

“Destroyed. What was that earthquake?”

“ _‘The servant of the dark is here’_ ,” he quotes, striding towards the exit. They scramble after him, Phil supporting both Izzy and Daisy. “The Entity behind the Eye was afraid.”

“I suspect Pandora’s actions might’ve called something far worse.”

* * *

####  **The Great Hall**

There’s a gigantic portal above the atrium.

It’s not like the ones she’d seen in the battle that’s going to stay etched in her memory forever. No, the sparks these holes emit are black, encircling the view of a rocky, dusty, equally dark landscape. Panicked screams trail up from the ground floor as devastatingly familiar creatures drop down from the hole, launching themselves at the hapless sorcerers in far worse shape than she is.

“ _Chitauri?_ ” Coulson whispers.

Isabelle’s head is pounding hard enough that she can feel it in her eyeballs, made worse by the fact that she can’t get the image of Pandora Peters’ bloody corpse out of her head. They say the body can hold memories the mind has forgotten; she might not remember any of it, but her fingers can still feel the phantom give of Peters’ heart beneath her ice spike.

Nausea churns in her gut.

“What the hell is that?” Johnson grunts, pointing to the portal. Her arms are alarmingly bruised; Isabelle thinks they’ll make a good team if they have to fight the horrific creatures, which - from the way this day is going - is just a matter of time.

“A semi-stable breach. Its formation is what caused the earthquake.”

“Can you close it?”

“Yes.” The sorcerer glances down the circular corridor, nods at the gigantic creatures rapidly making their way over. Isabelle recognizes their hulking silhouettes - Chitauri Gorillas, little more than animals to the main horde. “Buy me some time.”

She shakes her head when Coulson hands over her gun.

There’s understanding in his gaze. “Punch your way through today if that’s what it takes, Agent Collins.”

Gratitude swells in her.

"Violent and unstable behavior coming right up, Director.”

* * *

A deep silence settles in the passage. Johnson shuffles in readiness, and it triggers a response from the creatures. Almost in unison, they take a step forward, their heavy tread making even the stone floorboards groan in protest. The flickering lights cast a skewed beam over their forms.

Isabelle inhales sharply.

The parts that are illuminated reveal… _augmentations_. Organic tissue has been dismembered or amputated - she can’t tell whether it’s deliberate - and replaced with painfully-advanced, glowing cybernetics. External components such as shoulder-mounted weapons disappear beneath nauseatingly distended muscle and skin.

Three gorillas, one for each of them. The realization washes over them like a wave, and in the next instant, the three of them spread out in a loose triangle around Wong. Isabelle hears Coulson release the safety even as a long ice spike blooms from her fingers.

“What are you waiting for?” Johnson taunts.

Her answer is a thunderous roar.

* * *

It doesn’t take them long to realize that the gorillas are practically invulnerable.

Their armor plating is able to withstand most damage. Johnson's Quakes and Isabelle’s water blasts barely make a dent. Coulson’s enhanced prosthetic is the only thing keeping his own at bay.

Adding insult to injury, their weapon mounts are particle rifles; more than once, Isabelle has gotten singed by a stray radiation beam.

The only thing in their favor is that the gorillas are slow.

She ducks underneath a boulder-like punch, and it goes through the large doors of the Observatory. The fist gets stuck in the jagged hole, so it yanks hard until the door comes right off its hinges, and swings it at her.

It sends her flying backward towards a wall. Her head hits something hard, and she crumples. She ignores the ringing in her ears, spits blood out of her mouth, and looks up…

Only to roll out of the way as a massive paw comes stomping down on top of her. She jumps up, cries out as the beam that follows scorches a stripe across her arm, but then her fists shoot out, an ice beam directed towards the gorilla’s feet, freezing it in place.

It roars as it finds itself trapped again. Behind it, Coulson squeezes the trigger. His aim is true, and the bullet goes shattering through the temple. Brain matter splatters over the wall as it collapses, the light in its eyes blinking out in death.

She grabs Coulson’s hand and pulls herself up.

Then shoves him out of the way of the threat he’d ignored in favor of lending her a hand - his own gorilla - just in time for it to slam into her.

Her back hits the metal railing, driving the breath from her lungs. The particle rifle swivels and primes menacingly, aimed at Coulson, and she doesn’t even think before plunging an icy spike directly into the muzzle.

A fiery light sizzles through her fist, and she screams but doesn’t let go, forcing her entire body to turn to unyielding ice. Thickset arms enfold her, squeezing the life out of her - she can’t move, can’t breathe, but her grip doesn’t loosen. The few seconds it lasts feels like an eternity, but finally, the weapon overheats and backfires.

The fiery blast throws them apart. She gasps harshly as she hits the floor, ice bleeding away to reveal her blackened, sizzling arm. The pain is indescribable, and she can already feel the water starting to pool out of her suit, but then Johnson cries out, and Isabelle’s head snaps towards her.

Johnson’s attempting to hold off her own gorilla unsuccessfully. Coulson’s shots go wide. Isabelle can barely move due to the pain but pushes herself up on shaky legs. But she’s not going to be fast enough, she realizes, watching helplessly as Johnson goes down. The gorilla looms over its helpless victim, blocking Isabelle’s view. The boom of its loudest roar yet rattles the glass windows in their frames.

That’s when she feels the air shudder behind her.

It distracts Isabelle, and she turns to look at the breach slowly closing beneath Wong’s skillful spellcasting, which is why she doesn’t spot the Quake fast enough to dodge it.

It rips through the gorilla’s rifle mount and strikes her square in the chest. The concussive blast is powerful enough that she is lifted clean of her feet and tossed into the gaping maw of the rapidly shrinking hole in the universe.

The last thing she sees is Daisy Johnson’s horrified face, next to the crumpling form of the Chitauri she’s vanquished, just before the portal snaps shut.

* * *

###  **April 9th, 2024**

####  **The Atrium**

Daisy fingers the dark veins on her arms, watching S.H.I.E.L.D. agents scurry about, cordoning off various sections of the Castle and removing Pandora Peters’ body on a stretcher. “How are you feeling?”

Gabe Reyes arches an eyebrow. He looks drawn and exhausted, fingers wrapped around a cup of hot chocolate. Coulson had put his foot down on W.A.N.D. agents helping to secure the area until they were completely cleared of the Eternal Eye’s influence. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”

“I’d rather focus on anything else,” she admits. Her emotions are a mess - the guilt and self-loathing are mixed with the ever-present irritation and fury that always accompanies every single mission she’s been forced into with Isabelle Collins. “I’m sorry about Pandora.”

His smile flickers. “She was my mentor, you know? She took her job very seriously. Which makes me think there was a part of her that was genuinely trying to save me.” He shakes his head. “I just wish she’d have found another way instead.”

A silence descends. Then, softer - “What did it feel like?”

His gaze turns distant, as though he’s gone somewhere she’ll never be able to reach. “ _Dark_ ,” he says. “Cold. Wherever it was - it was never meant for mortals.” He shivers. “Ask something else, please.”

“How are you walking?” she asks immediately.

“Well,” he smiles,“ - right now I’m wearing leg braces, but usually I channel dimensional energy directly into my body.”

“Don’t suppose you can channel some into these,” she rolls her bruised forearms, wincing.

“Doesn’t work that way,” he chuckles, then sobers. “Daisy - it wasn’t your fault Isabelle Collins got pulled in.”

She grimaces. “More like ‘shoved’. My Quake hit her head on, Gabe.”

“Maybe, but someone created that breach - it didn’t come from nowhere. And it took her somewhere very, very far.”

She examines his troubled face. “Wong was pretty insistent on that word - _breach_. Is that a portal that leads you to another continent? Another world?”

“Daisy… breaches take you to other _dimensions_.”

* * *

“I thought the Chitauri were all destroyed in the Battle of Earth,” Phil asks as he approaches Wong, who’s kneeling over one of the gorilla corpses.

“Only those from the alternate universe. _These_ are from _our_ universe. Stragglers, severed from their connection with the mothership.” He sighs heavily. “They seem to have found a new master.”

“The cybernetics,” Phil nods. “Is that how they managed to create a breach in the middle of one of the most secure magical sites on the planet?”

The sorcerer shakes his head. “Their enhancements don’t grant them access to magical arts. Peters was clever; she tied the Castle’s wards to the Shield of Seraphim when she cast it, knowing that only I could bring it down. Unfortunately, we all got… distracted before I could raise them again.”

“Collins wasn’t responsible, Wong.”

He nods stiffly but doesn’t answer.

Phil suppresses a sigh. “Did you get anything about where she ended up?”

The sorcerer shakes his head. “Pinpointing one in the infinite number of realms that have rocky, dusty landscapes is like hunting for a needle in a stack made of other needles. Besides, I know of only one sorcerer who can open breaches, and he hasn’t been seen since the Battle of Earth.”

Phil sighs. “Strange.”

Wong nods, looking troubled.

“So we have no leads, very few answers _and_ we lost another one of my agents?” Phil grits his teeth. “Get your sorcerers to double-down on the wards, Wong.”

He seems to struggle for a moment, before giving in. “What about Collins?” There’s a dark look in his eyes.

But Phil has known him long enough to understand that, despite everything, Wong can’t help but care. “She’s counting on us to bring her home.”

“Let’s not disappoint her.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Marvel Comics Context:** W.A.N.D is the magical division of S.H.I.E.L.D. Director is Pandora Peters.
> 
> The name of the headquarters is never actually mentioned in the comics, so I decided to call it the Castle because it fits the pattern of S.H.I.E.L.D. bases to have very obvious code-names. In my fic, W.A.N.D. was created, once again, as a result of the Decimation, when control was sorely needed in order to prevent the complete extinction of the human race.
> 
> The Eternal Eye is technically another name for the Orb of Agamotto. Unfortunately for me, the Orb is actually already displayed in the Doctor Strange movie, so for the purposes of this fic, the Eye and the Orb are two different things. Mass Effect fans will recognize the true nature of the Orb by the description given. An Easter Egg. :)
> 
> The Shield of Seraphim is a spell I created for the purposes of this fic. I do love creating mystical spells and artifacts.
> 
> **Sorcerer Tomes:** Information copied from the comics-based wiki.
> 
> The flesh-bound Grimoire Verum is stated to be one of the oldest occult textbooks in the world. Inspired by the occult books of the Cthulhu Mythos.
> 
> The "frightful" Book of Eibon was a mean to summon "strange creatures and stranger gods".
> 
> The Black Sea Scrolls were one of many books mentioned to contain knowledge on a cosmic obscenity that slumbers and on the cults and lost races that wait for the end of that slumber.
> 
> **Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Context:** 0-8-4s are S.H.I.E.L.D. code for 'objects of unknown origin'. Mjolnir was declared as one when it crash landed in New Mexico.
> 
> **Mass Effect Context:** In the canon, the destruction of the Statue of Liberty sparked a Second American Civil War, which lasted two years, ending in the UNAS' favor.
> 
> It'll be happening in the background of this fic; my character will not be participating in it. In my fic, two terrorist attacks back-to-back resulted in a blaze of outrage which sparked the Civil War.
> 
> A/N: Let me know your comments down below!


	6. The World Was Void

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tensions rise within S.H.I.E.L.D. as Isabelle Collins remains MIA. Meanwhile, on another dimension, Isabelle encounters a hauntingly familiar face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So.
> 
> When I started this, I said that this fic takes as canon until only the _events_ up to Season 4 of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 
> 
> I never said anything about characters or locations that have appeared in later seasons. ;)
> 
> My excuse is that those characters, those locations do _exist_ somewhere out in the world, even if they haven't been explored. The Lighthouse (from Season 5) remains an example, as you've seen in the last chapter. 
> 
> Other - hmm, let's call them _elements_ \- might also make an appearance down the line. ;)
> 
> Thanks to my beta, ElessarII, who had the patience to go through this chapter and actually like it. Wow. You're an excellent ego booster, my friend.
> 
> [02.01.2021] EDIT: I've overhauled this entire arc to better fit where I'm taking this story. Old readers - apologies for the inconvenience. New readers - hope you enjoy the story.
> 
> Let me know your thoughts in the comments down below.

_The world was void,_

_… A lump of death—a chaos of hard clay._

_The rivers, lakes and ocean all stood still,_

_And nothing stirr'd within their silent depths;_

\- Darkness, Lord Byron

  
  


###  **TIME: UNKNOWN**

####  **LOCATION: UNKNOWN**

“You nap any longer; you’re gonna lose a hell of a lot more than five years,” is the first thing she hears when she comes to.

She pushes herself on shaky arms, breathes through the nausea, and immediately chokes. It doesn’t feel like that’s oxygen that’s going into her lungs - feels like _sand._

Isabelle scrambles away until her back hits a hard, rough surface. _Rock_ , her probing fingers tell her.

She’s been hit on the head enough times in her life to recognize the symptoms of a concussion by now. Her head’s pounding, and there’s a muted ringing in her ears. But concussion-induced hallucinations are rather rare, Isabelle reminds herself as she stares at the huge black hole in the sky, an aura of light seeping into it.

The whole of her right side is numb. She looks down and is concernedly unsurprised to find a ghastly patchwork of red and charred black where pink, healthy skin used to be. The water from her suit must’ve repaired as much as it was able to keep her alive.

Any other day, she’d be screaming at the sight. But if the voice that had woken her up hadn’t elicited such a reaction from her, she doubts anything would.

“If it makes you feel better - looked a whole lot better than mine did.”

She looks to the devastatingly familiar figure casually leaning against a rock, legs pulled up to his chest. He wiggles his fingers at her, and her gaze gets caught onto the rough, aged yet unblemished skin of his own right arm, which had been a dark, shattering reflection of hers the last time she’d seen it.

“You’re not real,” she says. The water hadn’t bothered healing her crisped nerve endings, so she doesn’t feel pain anywhere - for now - but it can’t do much against the black hole in her chest, mirroring the one in the sky.

So much for hallucinations being rare.

Tony Stark’s mouth curls up in an asymmetrical smile. “How do you figure?”

**_You mean, besides the obvious?_ **

“Hoodie’s too clean,” Isabelle murmurs nonsensically, her eyes fluttering shut of their own accord until all she can see is the faintest glimpse of the orange piping trailing down a grey-black hoodie. There’s no sign of the black, powdery substance that seems to permeate every inch of this macabre fantasy her mind has come up with.

She jerks as he kicks at her leg hard. “I’m the _only_ thing that’s not really here, Izzy,” he says emphatically, surprising no one with his ability to read her thoughts.

Her spinning, aching brain splits that incomprehensible sentence into individual letters then puts it back together again as words that are scrambled all over the place. It takes a good long while for the meaning to finally sink in, and by then, Isabelle’s too tired to doubt his words.

Her eyes rove over the landscape. The surface is barren and cracked as far as she can see. Even the mountains in the distance are just as black and dead, with not a single sign of life. “Where am I?”

“Very, very far from home.”

Until now, she’d been the only member of the original seven Avengers to have never been on an alien planet, or even to space.

She’s not missing a whole lot.

Her fingers curl into the ground, feeling the way the black substance gives beneath her hands.

“Not sand,” he says. “Not soil. _Ash_.”

“Ashes of whom?” She tries not to breathe too deeply, then remembers that it makes no difference either way.

Tony shrugs. “Nobody. It’s just what this whole planet is made of. Well, I call it ash - the actual term would be _dark matter particulates_. But _ash_ is more dramatic, don’t you think?”

“Drama was always your thing - are you gonna _stop kicking me?!”_

“Don’t fall asleep, and I won’t have to. What’s the last thing you remember?”

She groans but shoves her mind to where he wants it to go. No version of Tony had ever let her be at peace when he wanted something. Brat. “The ocean,” she says, tossing out words as memory slots into place. “Dark, and cold.”

She shudders out a breath. “I killed someone. A woman. And then, I fell.”

There’s silence for a long moment. “What do you feel?” His voice is soft.

“Burned out.” She slumps sideways into the ash. “Please, Tony. Let me rest.”

“You can’t. Not _here_.”

“There’s no water table,” she murmurs, not having consciously realized it until the words escaped her mouth. “Whole planet’s barren. Even if I sleep, I won’t lose control. I won’t hurt anyone.”

There’s silence for a long moment.

“Not that you’d care even if you did.”

That tone - disdain mingling with disappointment - perfectly synthesized to yank her back from the abyss. Despite herself, she cracks one eye open. “... what’s that supposed to mean?”

Tony shrugs, eyes piercing exactly the way they had in life. “You’ve never been much for _family_. You abandoned me half my life, lied to me, betrayed me willingly. You stole a Time-Space GPS just to get away from that burden. You still have it, don’t you?”

Isabelle knows what this is. She _does_. But it still feels like being punched in the chest. “Shut the fuck up.”

“You’ve wanted this ever since I died. Pushing yourself so hard, hoping your body gives out on you so you don’t have to go on. You never even _wanted_ to come back.”

“Stop it.”

“Let’s be real, Izzy,” he snaps, pushing himself to his feet. Her stomach clenches at the look on his face. “You’ve exchanged - what? A dozen words with my daughter? You abandoned Pepper and Rhodey and Peter. You don’t give two hoots about _hurting people._ You won’t even care if they _died_.”

“I said _shut up!”_ Within the span of a heartbeat, she’s upright and launching herself at him.

Her hook is too wide; he easily evades it. But the _lack_ of a real, physical jaw snapping beneath her fist doesn’t foil the sudden bolt of agony that screams down her blackened arm. She doubles over, biting her lip and relying on his presence to ground her until the remaining water in her suit takes over.

“Below the belt, Tony,” she grits out when she can finally speak without wanting to scream.

“Got you up, didn’t it?” The feigned disdain has been replaced by the snarky, jovial tone she’s missed _so much_. She can pretend for a while longer that thinking of this as anything but a hyper-realistic figment of her imagination isn’t going to cost her later. “Better angry than ready to die on foreign soil, trust me.”

The pain had swallowed her anger whole, but he doesn’t need to know that. “Son of a bitch.”

He leans back as she straightens, still weak on her feet. “Let’s not bring Mom into this.”

Isabelle stares at him, drinking in those features she thought she’d never see again until the tightness in her throat reduces to a manageable amount. “Why am I seeing you?”

“We’ve done this before, you and I,” he says. “Bit of a role reversal. I was dying in a barren hellhole and you told me to get off my ass and get home.”

She shakes her head, immediately regretting it as her head spins. Something about what he said rings wrong to her, but her brain will melt out of her ears if she tries poking at it further. “So what; you here to return the favor?”

“You’re gonna owe me a hell of a lot more, actually. Death’s not the worst outcome here.” His arms spread like a showman - a perfect reproduction of his real-life counterpart who could never, ever stay still. “What’s wrong with this picture, Izzy?”

She stares at him as drolly as she possibly can. **_What isn’t?_ **

He shakes his head. “No. You can make sense of almost everything here.” His face twists into urgency, and suddenly she’s not looking at her kid brother, but _Iron Man._ “Maybe I'm a ghost. Maybe I'm a mirage - a result of dehydration mixed with deliberate insomnia, with a pinch of trauma-induced concussion. Maybe I'm a manifestation of the Eternal Eye.”

He grabs her shoulders again, forcing her to meet his burning gaze. “But that _makes sense_. It is a perfectly plausible scenario. As is the fact that you fell through a hole in the universe and landed in an alien world revolving around a black hole. What _doesn’t_?”

She casts one more glance. Ash-smothered clouds blanket the mountains to the west. Ash-choked plains bleakly cover the rest of the surface, lit up by the blue-purplish light of the accretion disk…

Wait, _blue-purple?_

Isabelle inhales sharply.

Something is reaching _out_ of the black hole.

A perverted ocean of planets and bolide objects in space that distorts around itself; breaking apart and putting itself back together in twisted, paradoxical ways. Unlike the infinite darkness of the black hole, this… _mass_ is lit up like a nightclub, searing colors she’s never seen behind her eyelids.

“What the hell is that?”

Her heart skips when she sees the stark dread in her brother’s eyes. He opens his mouth, and she knows what he’s going to say even before he says it.

“ _Run_.”

* * *

###  **April 10th, 2024**

####  **W.A.N.D. RnD Facility**

**The Castle**

Phil and Daisy are heading towards the labs when someone grabs his elbow. He arches an incredulous eyebrow at Wong, but the sorcerer doesn’t retreat. “You don’t know the kind of forces you’ll be inviting by doing this,” the other man urges. “Don’t you recall the Battle of New York?”

“Don’t _you_ remember the Battle of Earth?” Phil counters. “Hundreds of portals were created there; I saw the footage. Those weren’t weakening the fabric of reality?”

“None of those portals were _breaches_! What you’re trying to do is beyond dangerous; you have no guarantee that it’ll be Collins that comes through or _something else_! There are billions of monstrous creatures in billions of realms just waiting on the other side of that veil; intent on devouring our realm! You’re opening a door to all of them!”

“Well, I’ll be sure to open just a crack, then.”

“Coulson,” Daisy says uncertainly, but just like Wong, she doesn’t back down when he turns his glare on her. “Maybe we should listen to him,” she says quietly.

Phil sighs. “If you want to make sure nothing comes through,” he tells Wong, “ - then by all means, stay and watch. Bring Reyes for backup, if you like.”

“But we’re bringing Isabelle Collins home.”

* * *

####  **Alchemical Laboratory**

Daisy and Wong aren’t the only ones reluctant. Phil’s mood sours further the longer he has to try to get through to the elderly scientist. “You are the world’s foremost expert on wormholes, Doctor Selvig. If you can’t help us, no one can.”

Erik Selvig throws up his hands. He’s surrounded by screens and monitors, beeping at odd intervals. There’s a variety of instruments lying scattered about that he can’t even identify the individual components of, let alone figure out what they do.

“... Einstein-Rosen bridges are wildly unstable,” Selvig is saying when Phil finally forces himself to tune in, “ - and besides, I don’t know how to _create_ them; I’ve just taken readings when they’ve occurred!”

“Then take readings,” Phil snaps. Selvig rears at his harsh tone. “Compare it to your earlier analysis! At least _try_ to find out _where_ she ended up!”

Selvig blinks at him slowly, and Phil feels as though he’s not measuring up to whatever image the scientist has built of him. “You know they told us you were dead?” he says, after a long, tense moment.

Phil shuts his eyes.

“They said that Loki killed you. Stabbed you right in the heart. Jane actually cried.”

“Doctor Foster knows,” Phil blurts. He can still feel the echo of the resounding slap he’d been greeted with when she and Tony had walked into the Lighthouse during the Decimation. Her anger had waned with that, but Tony’s had lingered for the next three years - he hadn’t stopped calling him ‘Agent’ once in that period.

The guilt had never quite left him.

“I know. She was the one who told us after Darcy and I Blipped. She also told me who brought me back, and at what cost.” Selvig sighs, pulling the long scarf from his shoulders and draping it over a chair. “I owe Stark a lot; he gave me a job when everyone else thought I was crazy.” His smile is sad and old. “Said he _liked_ my crazy.”

He sighs.

“I’ll do it, Coulson. I’ll take my readings, and make you a portal.” He locks steely grey eyes with Phil. “On one condition.”

“After this is over, I want S.H.I.E.L.D. to forget my number.”

* * *

###  **TIME: UNKNOWN**

####  **LOCATION: UNKNOWN**

Isabelle’s lungs burn as she leans against the jutting rock. Her skin, her uniform are all coated with a thick layer of ash and dust. “I can’t... I can’t run anymore. Gimme a second to catch my breath.”

Tony hums, hands in his pockets as he stares at the fake black hole vomiting inter-dimensional stomach contents. “You’ve got ten minutes.” The bastard doesn’t even sound winded, despite having run for almost as long as and as fast as she had.

Being dead must have its perks, she thinks, and is immediately stricken. “What exactly will happen if I get sucked into it?”

Judging by the look he tosses her way, her tone hadn’t been the ‘casual-conversational’ she’d been going for. “Don’t get any ideas. That thing will make you wish for something as awesome as death. Keep running.”

“To what end?” The rock doesn’t have much in the way of a flat surface, but she manages to park herself on the very edge, giving her abused knees some much needed relief. “There’s no portal, Tony. No rescue. No way out.”

He sighs, nods at her suit. “What have you learned?”

She glares at him, then pulls up her hood and activates the suit’s HUD scanner. “It’s not a planet,” she says. “Not the way we think of one, anyway. There’s nothing below the surface... just rock, down to its very core.”

He nods, brows furrowing. “Just a bloated, oddly spherical asteroid.”

“Only source of heat - and light - is from the accretion disk.” She exhales. “Tidally locked to the black hole; it’s incapable of rotation.”

“That’ll make it a hell of a lot easier for them to lock onto you from Earth,” he points out, as though the reasoning isn’t as desperate and absurd as it sounds. He must’ve caught the look in her eyes, because he scowls. “What, do you really think Phil Coulson’s the kind of man to go ‘too bad’ and just _abandon_ you?”

Isabelle remembers snippets of being possessed. The echoes of the Entity’s emotions - of the poisonous hatred that had coursed within their shared body when Coulson had vowed to hunt it down. “I... no,” she murmurs. He had threatened to blow her brains out rather than risk her suffering a second longer underneath that thing’s control. “He wouldn’t let go.”

“You can’t blame yourself, you know.” Yet again, he’s able to extrapolate her thought process. She doesn’t believe it’s wholly an aspect of his hallucinatory nature; he’d been unusually tuned to her mind in life, and she to his. Secrets she may have hidden from him, but he’d always known that she was doing so; it’s what had soured their relationship for so long. “It isn’t on you.”

There’s an edge to her laughter that she doesn’t care for. “How do I have guilt to spare for Pandora Peters?” Her fingers remember plunging the ice spear into the sorcerer’s heart. “I thought I used it all on you.”

“The Decimation taught me it doesn’t work that way.” His gaze turns alert, probing. “But _guilt_ isn’t the predominant emotion, isn’t it?”

Isabelle pushes herself up. She should’ve known this was what he was leading up to, all along. “We should leave - that thing is catching up to us.”

“ _Izzy_.”

Cords twang in her neck as she snaps her head around. “What do you want me to say? No, Tony, guilt doesn’t even come close!”

“Then what _do_ you feel?”

Her nostrils flare. “ _Owned_ ,” she spits, wondering if some supernatural force had yanked the words out of her. “Like I was... _branded_ , by whatever took me.”

She breathes, attempting to rein in her emotions before her fool mouth betrays her any further. “We’re done. Let’s go.”

She walks away without waiting, and just when she thinks she’s lost him, he falls into step beside her as though he’d never left.

* * *

###  **April 13th, 2024**

####  **Alchemical Laboratory**

“What do you have, Doctor?” Phil asks as he walks into the labs. His relationship with Selvig is colder than it’s ever been, and he regrets that it has come to this. But he’s managed to muffle the initial panic into a tiny ball, which pulses in his chest whenever he stops to think; he’s starting to understand why Izzy keeps going even when suffering from burnout.

But today, his agents had reported that the scientist had been quite literally _skipping_ across the labs.

“Look!” Selvig cries excitedly, shoving a cracked StarkPad towards him.

Phil looks, doesn’t find anything except for a glitchy screen displaying a line graph with increasingly huge spikes over time. “What am I seeing?”

“The energy levels,” the scientist says, jabbing at the screen with thick fingers. “My sensors couldn’t handle the surge; they all shorted out! None of my equipment survived! Isn’t that brilliant?”

Phil has been forced to learn to fill in the gaps when it comes to following the thought processes of genius-level scientists, so he knows which part of that incomprehensible sentence to zero in on. “Surge?”

“The one that ensued when I switched the gravimetric spikes on!” Selvig’s eyes are sparkling, and he’s bouncing from foot to foot as he flicks on random switches on his machines. “I installed them around the site of the breach and when I switched them on - _bang_! Sparks everywhere!”

Phil looks towards Daisy and Wong, who shrug almost in unison, looking just as lost.

Selvig’s face seems to fall a little when he realizes that none of them are appreciating his brilliance. He makes an impatient noise, then stalks forward and jabs at the screen again. “My sensors showed a drastic and very _specific_ spike in gravitational and radiation levels… which correspond to only one energy in the entire known universe. An influx of _dark energy_.”

Out of the corner of Phil’s eye, he spots Wong stiffening. But Selvig is still talking, so he makes a mental note to interrogate the sorcerer later. “What does this have to do with bringing Collins home?”

Selvig takes a deep breath. “So I compared whatever readings I _did_ get before everything shorted out with all the other data I’ve collected over the years. I searched everywhere - got nada, zip, zilch. But then…”

A grin brightens his weathered face again. “Then, I called _Jane_.”

“What did she have to say?”

“She’s been doing her own research. Abnormal readings from all over the _globe_ . Weird energy levels corresponding to gravitation, seismic, _gamma…_ and then we combined our data, we figured out that they were all the _same_! All indications of dark energy! Massive amounts, bleeding into our world.”

“Dimension,” Wong corrects from his corner. Phil turns to look at him; the other man’s eyes are squeezed shut. “Dark energy bleeding into our _dimension_ from more breaches.” He rubs his forehead. “The few sorcerers I am still in contact with have reported something similar. None of these breaches last more than a few seconds, but their effects linger a long time before dissipating.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I didn’t think it had any bearing on Collins’ disappearance. It’s been happening all over the world, and each breach leads to a different dimension. There are millions of them; there’s no way to narrow it down.”

“You aren’t _listening_!” Selvig cries, banging the StarkPad on a table. “Dark energy is one thing, but this…,” he jabs at the screen, this time hard enough that yet another crack appears, “ - _this_ spike is _gravitational_. I’m talking really, really off the charts. The kind of off-the-charts that you get in the presence of something really massive; something that sucks in every. Single. Thing. In its _path_!”

He straightens. “Something… like a _black hole_.”

Phil’s stomach plummets. His heartbeat is heavy, sluggish, and he almost thinks he’s having a heart attack, but ever since T.A.H.I.T.I., the old ticker has been perfect. The treatment had cleared out his cholesterol levels too.

So why is his chest so heavy?

“Are you saying,” Daisy whispers, her face bloodless, “ - that Isabelle Collins _fell into a black hole_?”

That’s why.

To their utter surprise, Selvig rolls his eyes and tsks at them. “If she’d fallen _into_ a black hole, _you_ would’ve too! In that split second that the breach was open, it’d have sucked in everything within a hundred-mile radius! The Castle would’ve been nothing but a _crater_. Besides, weren’t you the one who saw a world of sand and rock?”

The sense of relief that hits him makes him stumble. Phil clutches onto the top of a chair and just breathes for a few seconds. “Then what…?” he croaks.

For the first time, Selvig has a sympathetic expression on his face. “She might not be _in_ a black hole, but she’s very near it. Almost dangerously close. Barely beyond the event horizon.”

“So I told this to Jane, which is when she realized where she’s seen such readings before. She compared it, and immediately recognized it for what it was.” He swallows. “A black hole, swallowing a world overflowing with dark energy.”

Phil finally knows where this is going. He’s seen the reports of the Convergence, after all. “The Dark World.”

Selvig nods. “The stories I grew up with as a child called it _Svartálfheim_ , the land of the dark elves.” He sighs. “The stories left out a lot.”

“What do we know about it?”

The scientist shrugs. “I only know what Thor told me. Dead world, birthplace of the Svartálfar, who claim that it’s the oldest planet, existed _before_ the universe itself, somehow. Jane described it as a planet of nothing but remnants, ruins of a dark civilization. The accretion disk remains the only source of illumination for the Dark World.”

Phil sighs as some of the weight leaves his shoulders. “We need to…”

“No,” Wong interrupts. His voice is firm, and he takes a few steps forward, moving deliberately into Phil’s personal space. “ _No._ This… this is _worse_ than I imagined. And I imagined _bad_.”

“I told you…”

“That was before we were talking about the _Dark World_ ,” Wong says, slashing a flat palm through the air. “There’s a reason it’s called that; there’s a reason very few sorcerers draw energy from that dimension. It is _not_ a black hole,” he says, his head snapping towards Selvig.

“It’s a _dark-energy star_. Easy to confuse the two; they have similar features - insurmountable gravitational fields, time dilation - but it converts infalling matter into dark energy, which is corroding that entire dimension.”

Selvig’s brow clears, and he nods distractedly, and immediately turns to his computers and starts typing something furiously.

“Do you remember my warnings to Pandora about the magic she was using?” Wong demands, turning back to Phil. “Imagine more spells wielding such energy… _dark energy_. Imagine trillions _dead_ , their life force being funneled into an entity that is unimaginably powerful, an entity that is hungry for _everything_ , for the entire universe!”

Phil meets his gaze steadily. “All the more reason to bring her back if that’s what she’s facing.”

Wong is breathing heavily, his usual composure having long disappeared. “I won’t stop you, Coulson, even though I want to. But I won’t help you either.”

And he turns and walks out the door.

Phil stares after him for a long moment. “Doctor Selvig, I hope you have a way to open a breach, because we just lost our best asset.”

Selvig snorts. “Magic,” he derides. “Just technology we don’t understand yet. Arthur C. Clarke. Jane convinced me of that.”  
  
“So? Do you have something?”

“You’re very lucky she fell into the Dark World,” Selvig says, waving his hands. “My data from the Convergence, as well as all the readings that Jane took while she was on that planet should let me,” and here he hesitates, “ - _theoretically_ replicate the effects of the Convergence in a very, very small, localized area. I’d have to subtract the readings from the other realms that the Convergence opened - that might take some time…” He trails off into unintelligent muttering.

Phil waits. His patience has returned, now that he knows where Collins is. It’s still the most dangerous mission he’s ever undertaken, but it’s worth it. He won’t lose anyone else. “What do you need?”

The elderly scientist hums. “More assistants, some gravimetric spikes, Jane’s Phase Meter would be _amazing_ , and, oh…”

“I’m gonna need the Castle cleared.”

* * *

###  **April 18th, 2024**

####  **Upper Bailey**

**The Castle**

“Why here, though?” Daisy asks, shielding her face against the wind. Beyond the curtain walls, the river is sparkling blue; like the Hudson, five years of minimal human intervention had repaired what decades of water treatments could not. “Wouldn’t it be less dangerous to do it somewhere uninhabited?”

Coulson shrugs. “Something to do with keeping as many factors identical as during the breach. We compromised on the bailey,” he gestures to the wide, open courtyard laid out before them. “He wanted to wait for the next thunderstorm, but obviously, we can’t wait that long.”

“We can’t?” Daisy mutters, but her voice isn’t as quiet as she’d hoped. Coulson sends her a sharp look. “I’m just saying - you heard what Wong said. If something goes wrong…”

“Nothing will go wrong,” he insists, eyes bright and determined. “We’ll open the breach, she’ll come through, we’ll close it before there’s any damage. Besides, it’s not as if there’s going to be a big hole like in the Battle of New York. It’ll just be a little thing.”

“Little enough for a person to walk through,” she mutters, but only when Coulson is well out of earshot.

Coulson’s orders had been enough to get the Castle cleared. Daisy remembers a time when such respect for his authority would’ve been impossible. And after the HYDRA Uprising and the LMD fiasco, S.H.I.E.L.D. had been all but dead in the water.

The Decimation had changed all that. Coulson had been the one to yank the world from the brink of chaos, and now he’s up there among the likes of Iron Man and Black Widow in terms of fame and respect. Every man, woman and child knows his name, knows his face. And they trust him.

Trust is the one thing that he’s been running after since she met him, or so she’d thought. But now… now he’s so very different, because those five years had changed him irreparably. He’s… desperate now.

As clearly evident by the fact that he’s willing to risk his entire dimension just to bring home one woman.

Daisy doesn’t think Isabelle Collins is worth it. But then, it’s not up to her to decide.

She’s just here to do damage control.

* * *

It’s nightfall by the time the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents finish installing the gravimetric spikes. They’re just running through the final checkups now.

“The radius has to be much smaller than the last time,” Fitz explains to Daisy, who’s nodding along. “We want to open the breach just a smidge. Any more, and we won’t be able to control it. It’ll be a squeeze for Collins.”

“We should send flares through or something,” Daisy says. “So she knows where to go.”

“Already got that covered. At the moment of the breach’s creation, there will be a massive release of energy. We’re gonna be able to redirect it to Svartálfheim for maybe ten minutes before the backlash starts affecting our world.”

Daisy shares a loaded look with Coulson. “The _explosion_ will be our flare.” His determined expression tells her that he’s going to go through with it anyway, but there’s a fear there too.

There’s a sour taste in her mouth when she realizes that it’s not because he’s afraid of whatever damage this might cause Earth. No, the fear is very much because Coulson is imagining the possibility of Collins being in the vicinity when the breach first opens up on the Dark World.

“We’re ready!” Selvig cries, waving his hands. Everyone retreats from the area of effect, forming a circle around where the breach is supposed to manifest.

“Don’t cross the boundary,” Fitz warns as they take their positions. “Whatever happens.”

“Not planning on it,” she assures him.

“You might experience some discomfort,” Simmons says, coming up to her right, and handing her her Quake gauntlets. “All the data indicate we might experience seismic activity of some kind.”

“This just keeps getting better and better,” Daisy says, flexing her fingers inside the gauntlet and mentally steeling herself to absorb as many earthquakes as it took to bring Aquamarine home.

The woman better be falling over herself in gratitude.

“Al _right_ , better hold on to your tighty-whities - ,” Selvig shouts over the wind, “ - ‘cause this is gonna get _wild_!”

And he slams his hand on the StarkPad.

* * *

###  **TIME: UNKNOWN**

####  **Svartálfheim**

At this point, a brisk jog is all Isabelle can manage; Tony’s ‘motivating’ cheers and jeers notwithstanding. But his constant jabber is more of a comfort than she wishes to admit; her mind has come up with a very realistic simulation. She lets his voice wash over her as she examines her surroundings with a critical eye.

The surface is a deserted wasteland. There are signs of a massive, possibly world-ending battle. But she can’t quite shake the idea that this isn’t a dead world.

This is a world that never had any life to begin with.

Which makes this next bit baffling.

Because Tony’s been steadily guiding her towards ruins, gigantic wrecks of alien starships. “I don’t get it,” she mutters. “It’s not as if the thing’s gonna find it harder to catch up to me in there.”

“Would you rather be out in the open?”

She doesn’t deign with an answer. They make their slow, plodding way to the wrecks, and Isabelle lowers herself to a broad, flat block of metal but misses and hits the ground with a groan. He smirks as he takes a seat beside her gracefully.

Isabelle stares, her heart hot and heavy in her throat. “If I lean on you, am I gonna tip over?”

The smirk disappears. “Find out.”

She does so unwaveringly, sighing when she feels a line of solid warmth pressed against her side. Tears trickle down her cheeks. “You don’t need to wait around,” she whispers. “I‘ll be there soon enough.”

“You’re not dying,” he says impatiently.

For a moment, she allows herself to believe him. “Then why...?”

Silence falls, for so long and so deep it’s only the physicality of him that keeps her from panicking. “Because I need you to choose them.”

“What?”

He sighs. “I know what you’ve been doing. But there’s no peace at this end, Izzy. What I said wasn’t a lie - you _have_ been abandoning them. Pepper, Rhodey, Peter, Morgan - they need you.”

“They need you more.”

“Not now. I’ve done my part.” He shifts, making himself comfortable. “I get wanting to be selfish. Five years - I chose them. Didn’t try as hard as I should’ve to bring you back.”

And all of a sudden, she’s angry. She shoves at him hard. “You sure as hell found the time to build a _coffin_ instead of a suit,” she snarls. “Or did you think no one would go over the specs of Mark 85?”

His gaze is infuriatingly calm. “I was a futurist, Izzy. I always saw the bigger picture, which sometimes meant not seeing myself in it.”

“You didn’t even _try_.”

“Neither are you.”

She recoils. But his words, cruel though they might be, hold the clear note of truth. She’d barely stayed for the funeral, let alone past it. "You can't possibly expect me to be grateful."

He shakes his head. "I expect you to not waste it. I’m gone, and like it or not, I’m not coming back.”

His eyes flick to somewhere past her. Without warning, he grabs at her shoulders, clutching tightly. “Save the ones you still have left.”

His expression in that moment would be branded in her memory forever.

Because that’s when the world lights up.

* * *

###  **April 18th, 2024**

####  **Upper Bailey**

“I’m telling you, the breach is open!” Selvig cries, the device clutched in his flailing hands almost catching Phil in the chin. “Every scan I’ve taken confirms that!”

The humming, vibrating circle of gravimetric spikes surrounding an area of empty space contradicts the scientist’s words. No portal had appeared when Selvig had switched on the contraption; no sparks, no rip in the universe, no earthquakes, _nothing_.

“Is it invisible, then?” Coulson asks, his temper fraying. “Should I throw something in, just to make sure?”

Selvig opens his mouth, then shuts it just as quickly, his eyes lighting up. “You know, that’s not a half-bad idea,” he says, then looks speculatively at the machine, which Phil remembers belatedly is the Phase Meter they’d borrowed from Doctor Foster.

“Sorry, Jane… I’ll make you another one.” And before Phil can even think about stopping him, he stalks forward, right to the edge of the circle, and tosses it in.

Three things happen in that instant.

“ _No, wait, don’t_!” Fitz cries out, making a sharp motion towards Selvig, only to be yanked back by Simmons.

Daisy draws in a quick, shocked breath beside him, her hands spreading wide, her gauntlets trembling.

And with a horrific shearing sound, the Phase Meter rips apart, its shorn pieces hurtling away from the center as the air itself shudders from the impact, a second before the backlash hits.

The pulse is little more than strong wind buffeting them backward, but Daisy’s muffled cry lets him know that if not for her, it would’ve been a whole lot worse. She sways, and when he moves to assist her, she shoves him aside and stumbles towards a huge hole in the curtain wall. Huge waves ripple across the river as she releases all the vibrations stored in her gauntlets.

Phil looks around. Selvig had gotten the worst of the backlash, having been thrown to the ground. The scientist hasn’t attempted to pull himself up, doesn’t even seem to register Fitz shaking him, just stares blankly at the contraption in front of him.

He finally turns to look at the circle itself. Even without a background in science, he knows that it’s utterly ruined. Most of the spikes are out of formation, or just snapped in half, and the ground is charred and smoking.

There’s no sign of portal, or of anyone else.

Phil’s stomach drops as the truth he hadn’t allowed himself to admit hits him.

She’s gone.

* * *

###  **TIME: UNKNOWN**

####  **Svartálfheim**

The explosion lifts her off her feet and throws into the side of a bulkhead. Her back arches around a half-melted beam. Something sharp scrapes the underside of her jaw, almost decapitating her.

She tumbles to the ground and rolls for a few seconds before coming to a stop. The pain is fierce, arcing across her back and head, and there are starbursts behind her wet eyelids, which refuse to open against the onslaught of light and heat surrounding her.

The ash is hot beneath her torn, blackened hands, and the smell of burning metal and flesh makes her retch. But despite all this, despite the cloud of confusion crowding her mind, one thought manages to struggle its way free.

In a world of darkness and death, light can only mean one thing.

 _Hope_.

Tony’s upright, edges fading into the inferno his bright, brilliant eyes reflect. His mouth, like the Cheshire Cat, is the last thing to disappear, “ - tell her _I love her 3000._ ”

She pushes herself to her feet. Blinking to let her eyes adjust, she absorbs the very last drops of water in her suit and steps directly into the roaring conflagration.

It still burns, but it’s not as bad as it could’ve been, she thinks to herself, as her skin splits and blisters. She squeezes her eyes shut, lets her instincts carry her over to the hottest part of the fire-engulfed wreck.

She knows she’s reached it when, over the roaring of the flames and the distant, unearthly shrieks, the air in front of her makes a sound like cloth ripping.

Without opening her eyes, trusting in her gut, and whatever it is that’s waiting for her on the other side, she throws herself into the breach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** MCU Context: **
> 
> **Decimation:** So, when I first wrote this chapter, I didn't realize that Jane Foster hadn't survived the Decimation in MCU canon and Darcy Lewis had (as far as I know).
> 
> Now I can't change it because Foster's role in my canon will be very important in the coming decades.
> 
> So I'm kinda handwaving this by doing it this way - somehow, due to the butterfly effect caused by the existence of Isabelle Collins in this universe, Jane Foster was not chosen randomly by the Gauntlet when Thanos Snapped his fingers - instead, Darcy was. Jane was one of the Survivors who worked with Tony Stark and Phil Coulson in an attempt to bring back the Decimated.
> 
> Selvig was Snapped too.
> 
> ** General Context: **
> 
> **Dark Energy and Dark Matter:** This is actually a real, actual concept.
> 
> Most of the universe is made of dark energy. It's not actually dark, it's just called that because scientists are 'in the dark' about it.
> 
> This term is hugely important in my fic. My entire plot hinges on dark energy. You will notice that I use this term very, very carefully - I don't go throwing it around willy-nilly.
> 
> Dark Energy is responsible for expanding the universe, pushing away all stars and all planets and all matter from each other.
> 
> Dark Matter is the thing that holds our galaxies together. It produces gravity because scientists have determined that the percentage of ordinary matter in our universe doesn't produce enough gravitational force to hold it all together, so it must be 'dark matter'.
> 
> The two terms are not interchangeable terms - in fact, they're basically opposites.


	7. She was the Universe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some mysteries are cleared, while others emerge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Trigger Warnings** : Brief mentions of mental invasion via exorcism. Bit of a spoiler, I know, but better to be spoiled than caught off-guard by something that would unintentionally end up hurting someone. Please stay safe.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this one. Bit of an exposition-heavy chapter, but it's needed to move forward.
> 
> Translations from Russian to English provided in the End Notes.
> 
> Please leave comments and reviews. They help me understand how the story is impacting my readers and keep me motivated to write more and write better. Thanks.
> 
> Thanks to my beta, ElessarII, for reviewing this story and finding no flaws in it... for once. 
> 
> **[02.01.2021] EDIT:** I've overhauled this entire arc to better fit where I'm taking this story. Old readers - apologies for the inconvenience. New readers - hope you enjoy the story.
> 
> Let me know your thoughts in the comments down below.

_The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,_

_The moon, their mistress, had expir'd before;_

_The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air,_

_And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need_

_Of aid from them—She was the Universe._

\- Darkness; Lord Byron

  
  


###  **TIME: MIDDAY**

####  **LOCATION: UNKNOWN**

She lands in water.

Isabelle plunges deep before it hits her conscious mind, and she revels in the feel of the waves against her skin for a few extra moments before making for the surface.

She shoots out, hovers a few hundred feet above it, and draws in deep breaths, even though she doesn’t need to - water has never denied _her_ the ability to breathe. But she wants to familiarize herself with the taste of fresh air after inhaling ashes for god-knows-how-long.

She feels bloated and slick - her body always has gone on overdrive whenever she’s too wounded to limit herself. But she’s also more clear-headed than she has been since the Armory caught on fire, and her arm’s whole and unscathed again, so she’s not too inclined to complain.

She rises a little more and looks around. The water is clear, like a lake, but from what she can tell, the basin is far too huge to be one. Squinting her eyes against the sun, she peers towards the closest edge - there’s a river meandering down a forested slope and draining into the depression.

On the other end, there is just the hint of an uneven skyline.

The entire landscape seems oddly familiar, but she can’t quite place it.

It certainly _looks_ like Earth.

Civilization is much further than she anticipates, even with flight. She’s still fresh when she finally lands on the shore, but all the euphoria she’d felt earlier bursts like a balloon when she finally looks at what she’s been aiming for.

The skyline she had seen from the distance is nothing more than a city of ruins. Half-crumbled buildings greet her, marked with blast marks or bullet holes. The buildings bordering the shore - and it’s not a shore, just a cliff that drops sharply into the water - look like they have been sheared in half, and she can see rubble and broken wires through the massive holes in the remnants.

Her dazed footsteps clap on blackened and ash-scarred cobblestones as she walks through shattered roads. There’s something rising in her, a feeling she hadn’t experienced even in the darkness of that other world. It’s sickening and feels too familiar. It’s deeper than fear, than simple terror.

No, this is _dread_.

She walks for what seems like hours before she finds a sign of life that isn’t overgrowth weighing in caved-in roofs.

Her blood runs cold.

She finds she misses the bliss of ignorance as she stares at the decade-old graffiti staining the wall. Even being tossed into another world would’ve been better than being smacked in the face with the undeniable proof of her mistakes.

She shuts her eyes, but she can still see it - the word sprayed in red against the background of a winged helmet - etched on her eyelids.

_FASISTA_.

The clues had all been there - the lake which had been too big to be a lake, the blast marks, the ruins.

This is no city.

It’s a cemetery.

It’s _Sokovia._

* * *

The sun’s gone down by the time she finally stumbles upon a living soul.

Russian is the only Slavic language she knows, and even that isn’t her best, but she has picked up a few phrases from Romanoff, so she tries her best to get through to the middle-aged man squinting suspiciously at her.

“Помоги мне, пожалуйста,” she murmurs. “я Изабель. Телефон?”

He peers at her, then his eyes widen. Her stomach drops as she sees recognition in his eyes. “Я знаю тебя!” He points an accusing finger at her and there are furious tears in his eyes. “Эсминец! _Мститель_!”

She doesn’t have enough vocabulary to combat his increasingly high-pitched railing, so she murmurs an apology and puts him in a headlock. It isn’t long before his struggles peter out and he slumps against her. She apologizes again as she drags his unconscious body to a shade and pats him down.

He does have a phone, but it’s an old Nokia brand, with honest-to-god buttons. She can almost hear Tony’s ghost whisper obscenities in her ear.

She spares one last glance at the man and dials a number.

“ _New York Bell Company_ ,” a cheerful voice answers. “ _How may I assist?_ ”

Isabelle smothers a watery laugh. One thing hasn’t changed about Coulson - he’s still a sentimental fool. Forwarding calls from unknown numbers to Peggy Carter’s SSR cover story is a S.H.I.E.L.D. trick from before the Insight Helicarriers fell.

She’s suddenly, desperately glad that some things haven’t changed.

“This is Foxtrot 0734,” she tells the operator. “I need you to connect me to X-ray 2896.”

* * *

###  **June 28th, 2024**

####  **The Lighthouse, S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ**

**Med-Bay**

Daisy watches closely for a single sign of micro-expression from Isabelle Collins when she hears the truth.

There’s none.

“I’ve been MIA for how long?”

Her tone is curious, nothing more. No shock, no horror, no pain.

To a layman, it would appear Coulson is the same - calm and unruffled as always, but Daisy’s known him long enough to know when it’s a mask.

“Eighty-one days,” he replies. “You disappeared on the 8th.”

Collins murmurs, “Of course I did.”

There’s a pause. “We almost found a way to get to you. But it didn’t end well... or so we thought.”

The past two and a half months had been hell. No one had blamed her, but they didn’t need to - the guilt of tossing an Avenger into another dimension hadn’t let Daisy sleep, especially when she’d realized just _when_ Isabelle Collins had disappeared.

_April 8th._

The sixth anniversary of the Snap.

To top it all off, after Selvig’s failed experiment, they’d hit an impenetrable roadblock with all leads. A deeper, mystical investigation into the Chitauri had revealed nothing further regarding the case.

“I was gone for maybe a day, Coulson,” she’s saying, and her voice isn’t carefully controlled, like Coulson’s. It’s blank, as though none of this affects her.

Gabe Reyes stirs from his corner. His dark eyes, which hadn’t looked away from Collins since he’d portalled her here into the Lighthouse from Novi Grad, bore into hers. “You ever watched _Interstellar_?”

Collins blinks, then nods slowly. Daisy spots the moment the lightning bolt of realization hits her. “The black hole. Gargantua. _Time dilation._ ”

“We think the black hole’s energy also affected Selvig’s breach, because it threw you two months into the future instead,” Coulson explains. “ _Your_ future.”

There’s a loaded silence. Her gaze is clouded, far away when she says, “ - he knew.”

Coulson straightens. “Was there someone with you?”

“Not physically,” she shakes her head, then her eyes meet his alarmed ones. “It was just a _mirage_ , Coulson,” she assures gently. “I was a little out of it.”

If anything, that just makes him look more troubled. His expression mirrors Wong’s, but for different reasons.

Daisy knows the only reason the sorcerers are even here is because of Collins. She is the last lead in the case that’s the only remaining thing binding the Masters of the Mystic Arts and S.H.I.E.L.D. together, especially after Coulson’s decision to let Wong walk when he’d refused to help them bring her home.

W.A.N.D. is already feeling the pressure of being torn between two organizations, and she privately believes it won’t last much longer, not without a strong link binding them together.

“Anything else that you can remember that might help us?” Coulson asks.

Collins’ brow furrows. “Something was coming out of the black hole. This purplish flood of… planets, maybe. I’m not entirely sure that was real either.”

The older sorcerer pales. “Dormammu.”

“He’s an extra-dimensional being who rules the spaces between realms, the roots of the universe,” Gabe explains, eyes wide. “He must be the Chitauri’s new master.”

“What does he want?”

“He means to conquer all,” Wong says. “And with the onset of Ragnarok, his efforts have just doubled while his obstacles have been halved.”

“Ragnarok?” Collins straightens. “You mean the end of Asgard, and the fall of the gods? Thor told me the story.”

Wong just looks at her silently for a long moment, before sighing. “Ragnarok isn’t the end of Asgard, Collins. It’s the end of _everything_. All the Nine Realms and beyond. It just _starts_ with the fall of Asgard. You’ve already seen the dark energy engulfing Svartálfheim.”

“Dormammu’s darkness will encroach upon all the lands and worlds until only he remains,” he continues grimly. “The three Sanctums are the only thing that’s preventing him from gaining a foothold into Earth.”

Coulson raises a hand as Collins goes to ask yet another question. “Enough exposition for one day. I need to make some calls, and _you_ need to rest. That’s - ,” he says firmly when she opens her mouth to argue, “ - _an order_ , Agent Collins.”

* * *

Gabe and Wong are arguing. Daisy is eavesdropping shamelessly.

“You can’t be serious,” Gabe says through gritted teeth. “She’s been through literal hell, Dormammu dogging at her heels, and now you want to shove _this_ onto her?”

“It’s necessary. You and the others were in strict quarantine until you were cleared. Why should Collins be any different?”

“Because you still hold her responsible for Peters! Double standards are a bad look on you, Wong - you never blamed _me_!”

“You should know better than to think I would stoop to such weakness.” Wong’s voice is like steel. “It’s not a coincidence she was immediately susceptible to the Eye’s influence; something wanted her bound, _branded._ ”

He exhales. “Something, that I suspect, is also responsible for the breach in the Castle. As well as redirecting the one Selvig opened to _Sokovia_ , of all places.”

There’s a sharp inhale. “You think someone is trying to send a message.”

“No, Disciple Reyes. I think someone is trying to send _her_ a message.” He sighs. “If you truly distrust my motives, then, by all means, perform the spell yourself. You could certainly use the practice, especially if enthrallment becomes a common problem in the future.”

“But…”

And that’s Daisy’s cue. She slides out of the shadows. Neither of the sorcerers seems surprised. “If it’d been me, I’d have wanted to be cleared by any means necessary.”

Gabe’s face twists. “What could you possibly know about it?” he says harshly.

She nods, unoffended. "You remember Jemma, right?” The words rush out of her mouth in time with the rapid thudding of her heart. “A few years ago, she was stranded on a hostile, barren planet after falling through a portal. She encountered an alien parasite that took over the bodies of dead humans after it killed them and managed to brainwash Inhumans to its cause.”

She looks away from him and swallows past the revulsion at the thought of Hive on her, _inside_ her. She hates that she’s never managed to suppress the rush of all-consuming pleasure that always accompanied it. “One of those Inhumans... was _me_.”

“The only difference is, while Collins’ exposure to the Eye was brief… _I_ never killed anyone.”

He gapes at her in horror and the slightest hint of outrage, but before he can do more than open his mouth to berate her, she hears footsteps shuffling behind her. Gabe’s eyes snap to beyond her shoulder.

"Might as well, Agent Reyes,” Isabelle Collins says, sliding into view. Daisy’s stomach sinks. “ _I'd_ like to know I'm no longer hosting an extraterrestrial puppeteer as well."

"This... this isn't personal,” Daisy tries, her face flushing. Collins’ face betrays nothing, but she must have been close enough to hear the tale of her own failures.

Collins sends a flinty stare her way. "Oh, I think it's a _little_ personal.” To Gabe - “ - can you do it?"

He closes his eyes, and his mouth twists in distaste. "One thing Master Peters taught me,” he replies reluctantly, “ - there's very little magic _cannot_ do."

"So the real question sorcerers always have to ask is - _should you do it?_ " Wong says.

The four of them are all on the same page. Especially because they know Coulson will shut them down hard if they ask for permission.

He has a blind spot a mile long when it comes to Isabelle Collins.

But Daisy can see her for what she truly is.

Never someone to be trusted on her word alone.

* * *

####  **Med-Bay**

Collins’ supine on a bed, watching as Gabe washes his hands at the other end of the med bay in preparation for the spell. "Will it hurt?" she asks.

Wong purses his lips. "No. But..." He hesitates.

"Spit it out, Wong,” she insists.

"The spell doesn't work without full consent,” he explains reluctantly, looking over at Gabe, who’s frozen, with the water still flowing through his fingers, his mind far away. “But even with it, it's invasive. Unpleasant.”

Collins nods as though she was expecting that to be the case. "Sounds like it'll do a thorough job, then.” Her eyes seek Daisy out, and pin her to her seat. “Johnson - be ready to Quake me into another dimension if the scans show something that shouldn't be there, got it?"

Daisy blinks, flexes her fingers. "I... yeah. Got it."

Collins looks over at Gabe once again, and with a twist of her hand, the water sputters and shuts off. She arches an eyebrow as he jerks in surprise and turns to look at her. His face is alarmingly pale.

“I’d like to get it over with, Reyes, if you don’t mind,” she says. For the first time, her voice is almost soft.

He nods as he closes the tap and wipes his hands on a towel. Wong looks troubled but says nothing as he retreats from the room and closes the door behind him.

Gabe spreads his fingers before him, and forces himself to lock gazes with her. Daisy tenses at the look on his face, but Collins just slumps further into the bed.

“This will be uncomfortable,” he warns her just before the cold light of the spell washes over her.

Daisy had expected a strong reaction, perhaps even a negative one… but not _this_.

Collins’ eyes widen, a low, pained groan escaping her lips. A vein throbs in her forehead as her clawed fingers grapple for purchase against the mattress, and when the cloth tears, she clutches onto the iron bed frame above her head.

Daisy’s out of her seat, and pins her thrashing legs when they threaten to smash Gabe’s chin. Collins’ muscles strain under her hands, and her panicked breaths reach the point of hyperventilation.

Daisy looks over helplessly to Gabe, whose brow is beaded with sweat. He’s chanting spells feverishly, his eyes locked onto the other woman’s writhing form in pure agony and - the realization hits Daisy like a wall of bricks - self-loathing.

She only starts reconsidering her choices when Collins’ back arches off the bed, Gabe turns an alarming shade of green… and Coulson barges in through the door.

“What the _hell_ _is going on here_?!”

Gabe stumbles away with a gasp, the spell breaking. Isabelle Collins slumps against the bed as though the strings holding her have been snipped, shock and horror etched across her face.

“She’s clear,” Gabe croaks, before fleeing the room.

Daisy herself feels pulled back and forth between contradicting feelings of regret and obstinate brazenness even as Coulson rushes towards Collins. The woman shies away from his outstretched arms and curls up into a fetal position, her eyes shut tight as she breathes harshly.

Daisy almost quails at the look of pure disappointment Coulson sends her way. She hasn’t seen that look aimed her way since her very first few months with S.H.I.E.L.D, now more than a decade ago.

“What the hell were you thinking?”

She has no answer, and before she can gather her thoughts to think of one, the other woman beats her to it.

“It needed to be done, Coulson,” Collins rasps, her face unnaturally white. Coulson looks at her sharply.

“ _It needed to be done._ ”

* * *

####  **The Director’s Office**

Izzy had refused sedation, looking so shaken at the very thought that Phil hadn’t had the heart to force her. He doesn’t know what the spell had done to her, but it had shattered each and every one of her walls, leaving her very, very exposed.

Gabriel has disappeared, but Wong had assured him that he’d be back after he dealt with the aftermath of the spell himself.

Daisy’s waiting for him at his office, her face in her hands. She lurches upright when he enters, her eyes widening at whatever she sees on his face. “How’s she?”

He closes the door deliberately, reminding himself that slamming them will not fix whatever is rotting between the two Inhumans.

“Unnerved,” he replies simply as he slips behind his desk. He doesn’t sit though, just stares at Daisy, who isn’t able to suppress her grimace in time.

“ _Unnerved?_ Is that really the best she can do…?” She stutters to a stop when he arches an eyebrow.

“I used that word because it’s the only one she would consent to, if she were here,” he explains quietly, “and because I wanted to see your reaction to it.”

She turns away, her mouth twisting in distaste. “I have no idea why you hold such regard for her. She doesn’t deserve it, Avenger or not.”

He smiles at that, and if it’s even half as bitter as he feels, it would serve his purpose. “You think I respect her because she’s an _Avenger_? Wow, Daisy. I wasn’t expecting you to be apologetic, but I didn’t realize your bias ran this deep.”

Her eyes flash and she shoves herself off her seat. “Wong called it the 'Dark World', Coulson! That's almost as bad as a planet whose name literally means 'death'! I don’t see you raking _him_ over the coals!”

“Wong and I are on thin ice. But you counted on your sob story to tip both Collins _and_ Reyes over the edge. A completely pragmatic decision on your part, right, one that had nothing to do with the fact that you've been blatantly hostile to her since she joined? You looked almost disappointed when Gabe's scans came clear.”

She stays silent, but it’s an obstinate silence, not a repentant one.

Phil lets her see the full force of his anger. “This isn’t like you.”

“And it's not like you to let a _HYDRA operative_ into our base and our lives!” The truth behind her hostility finally erupts from her.

There’s silence, broken only by her semi-controlled heaves of rage and frustration. Phil looks at her for a long moment, before sighing and rubbing at his eyes.

“Skye,” he says, forgetting, yet again, that she no longer goes by the name and barely tolerates it from him. “For the hundredth time, she was a _triple agent_.”

Her face twists into a humorless smile for a brief second, as though she’s pitying him and what she perceives as his naivety. Phil doesn’t let it affect him - she doesn’t know the whole story; probably never will, the way things are going. “You sure about that?” she asks, almost derisively.

“As sure as I am of my own name.”

She sighs. “Coulson, S.H.I.E.L.D.’s assessment wasn't very flattering about her even _before_ she was exposed.”

“ _Peggy Carter_ penned down that assessment to protect her from those who would try to take advantage of her Inhuman abilities along with her lineage. C'mon, Daisy, this is childish. I'm not saying what you did was wrong.”

“But the _why_ you did it _was_.”

* * *

####  **Med-Bay**

Isabelle’s knees threaten to give out on her, but closure is something they both need, even if only one deserves it. “Wong,” she calls.

The sorcerer stills, caught in his attempt to slip out surreptitiously. She’s not angry; she’d agreed to it after all - in fact, she’s almost grateful for the spell - it had bleached away the last of the Entity’s control over her.

She no longer feels like a possession. For that, and for more, she owes him. “I’m sorry… about Peters.”

He sighs, turns to her. In the low light of dusk, he looks exhausted. She’s never seen him at anything less than impeccably impassive. “I know what Stephen Strange did,” he says, apropos of nothing.

She grows cold.

“He bound himself to an inescapable fate - a fate which started with the death of your brother.”

“ _Started…?_ What… ?”

“It means what goes around comes around. Pandora Peters was Stephen's novice,” he explains. “Ambitious and arrogant like him. But while he outgrew that, for the most part, she never did… because the Decimation ensured she could never complete her tutelage under him.”

Her heart grows cold, suddenly aware where he’s going with this.

“He... was responsible for killing your brother. And in return, you killed his best student.”

Horror swoops in her stomach. “That's not... I didn't... it wasn't…”

“Vengeance?” He shakes his head. “That's not what I mean. It was _fate_. Circle of life.”

He sighs. “Thinking that you could exert any control over an entity that is more powerful than anything you have ever faced is the same hubris that Peters displayed.”

His eyes are intense, almost glowing. “Don't fall into that trap, Isabelle Stark.”

* * *

####  **Living Quarters**

It’s late evening when Gabe finally makes his way back to the Lighthouse. He looks worn and exposed, and Daisy’s oscillating between whether to approach him or leave well enough alone, but he takes the decision right out of her hands.

They’re sitting on her bunk, and he’s clutching onto a mug of hot chocolate, his gaze distant. “You know her brother saved my life?”

That… hadn’t been what she was expecting. She blinks. “Tony Stark?”

“Yeah,” he nods. “During the Decimation, I was holed up at home. Supplies were running out, but I was better than most - I could hear gunshots and screaming outside.” He swallows. “It was... it was horrible. And then the looters came. They had a gun and... it felt like the car accident all over again. I was sure my time was over, and then, then... there he was.”

She links her arm with his. “A real Good Samaritan this time.”

“Yeah," Gabe smiles. "He came in through the roof. Crushed my wheelchair so he had to fly me to S.H.I.E.L.D. after he dealt with the bangers.”

His smile disappears as swiftly as it had come. “He saved me, Daisy. Built me my leg braces even though he didn’t have to, and I just…” He shudders out an exhale. “I just _violated his sister’s mind._ ”

A sudden coldness strikes her core. Her mind plays back Isabelle Collins’ expression as the spell had hit her, and Daisy can’t help but compare it to her own experience with Hive.

They’d both been forced into their individual situations. The only difference was that Daisy had actually _enjoyed_ being under Hive’s spell - high as she had been on the parasites that had targeted the pleasure centers of her brain - while Collins had been defiled by one.

Again.

“Gabe, no...”

“That’s what it feels like, you know,” he explains with a pained grimace. “That spell - the _Light of Agamotto_ \- it’s an _exorcism_. It doesn't actually require complete consent - that’s just to reduce the negative effects on both the caster and the… the victim,” he admits.

She finds she can do little more than allow him to clutch her hand as though it’s the only thing that’s keeping him in the here and now.

“Magic always has a price, and that spell... it demands more than most. In the old days, sorcerers used it to ferret out secrets hidden in the very _souls_ of their enemies,” he says.

"I'm... I'm so sorry, Gabe,” she stammers. “I didn't know."

He shrugs, leans his head on her shoulder. "I love magic, I do. It gave me my legs. But sometimes... I just wish I could go back, you know? To a life without it. Without the Ghost Rider. When it was just me and my brother.”

She swallows the lump in her throat. Her eyes are stinging. “I wish I could give you that, too. Robbie would too, if he were here.”

He stirs at that, leans back, surreptitiously wipes his eyes. Then he meets her gaze and seems to steel himself. "You said about that thing you saw - the one who brainwashed you and other Inhumans, rode the bodies of dead humans?"

She blinks, nods. "Yeah?"

"Is... is that what the Ghost Rider is, really?” He asks hesitantly, looking perturbed. “I mean, the thing inside Robbie... he rides dead people too, technically and he...well, he allied with you, so..." His voice tapers off as she hurriedly shakes his head.

"God, no, Gabe,” Daisy protests, grabbing his shoulders and shaking lightly, willing him to understand what Robbie was, what Robbie _is_. Better than Isabelle Collins, better than her, better than Coulson himself. “I wasn't... I know what it feels like to not have any control over my own mind, and it wasn't like that with Robbie. He was my _partner_ , not my master.”

“The Rider... he might have very violent and destructive ways of removing evil from the world, but he is fundamentally _good_. You don't need to worry about that.” She smiles tremulously. “Besides, shouldn't you know all of this by now, being a sorcerer and all?"

"The Masters don't know anything about the Ghost Rider. There are no books, no tales, no stories.” He shakes his head. “Daisy, I went to them for answers and I looked for five years and there was _nothing_."

Her heart sinks. "He hasn't returned? Not even once?"

"No. I don't even know whether he made it through the Decimation."

"...I'm so sorry, Gabe."

**_God, Robbie._ **

**_Where are you?_ **

* * *

####  **Med-Bay**

She still has a tremor.

Isabelle balls her fingers into a fist when the door opens, and Coulson walks in. She clears her face of any and all emotions by the time he takes a seat beside her.

She’s already shown enough weakness in front of him. He has lost the right for more.

He doesn’t ask her how she is, something she’s doubly grateful for, because she doesn’t think she can lie very effectively right now. But the alternative isn’t much better.

“You’re going home,” he pronounces quietly. “You have more than enough vacation days saved up.”

“I can work,” she protests, but it sounds weak even to her own ears. She’s certain that she’s right, though - going home will do nothing to stabilize her nerves, but punching people will work wonders.

“By my count, you haven’t slept for the last eighty days. Time dilation or not,” he argues. “You are weak, injured - yes, I know the water healed you, but it can’t fix what’s broken _inside_ you, Izzy - and you've just been through a horribly traumatic experience which you didn’t have to go through.”

“I’ve read the reports on Hive, Coulson,” she murmurs. “Quake’s powers are devastating, yeah, but if I’d been under the Entity's control for much longer, I could’ve _literally_ desiccated the Earth. And you yourself said no scanners can detect the effects of magic.”

He sighs. “That’s not entirely true. We don’t have any such devices in the Lighthouse, but the Castle does.” He hesitates, then barrels on. “The founder and former Director of W.A.N.D. - Pandora’s predecessor - was brilliant. Wasn’t a sorcerer, but merged magic and technology in ways no one had seen before. Even renovated the whole Castle to what it is today. Pretty sure one of his inventions would’ve been less… invasive than Reyes’ spell.”

He’s meeting her eyes squarely, not a hint of guile in them, which is when she knows that he’s hiding something from her. She thinks of his tentative tone, while speaking of this previous Director. She thinks of those holograms being tossed around in the Great Hall, the machinery spelled with runes.

The tremor doubles in intensity.

“Who was the founder of W.A.N.D, Coulson?” She’s not sure she wants to know the answer, but suspects she already might.

He exhales. “Tony Stark.”

The sound of his name drives the breath from her lungs. It’s a while before she has enough oxygen to croak out, “ - he hated magic.”

She can hear the smile in his answer. “He did. But only as long as he thought that it broke the laws of physics.” He sighs a sigh that’s part amusement, part grief. “After he realized it operated within completely different laws, and that he could learn and quantify those laws, he… tolerated it.”

“Despite not being a sorcerer, he understood magic like the best of them,” he continues. “It was why he was the best candidate for Director of W.A.N.D.”

“Why?”

He sighs. “He was trying to research the Infinity Stones, Izzy, he - _we_ were trying to find a way to bring you back.”

“He was working on time travel.” She has no doubt Fury had told the truth of the Time Heist to Coulson, who’s the most sensible guy in the world, the lie of his resurrection notwithstanding.

“Tony never liked to back just _one_ strategy.”

She nods. Almost without her consent, the words spill out. “I saw him there. He helped me get home.”

Coulson’s face doesn’t change; he isn’t surprised. But he doesn’t take it as evidence of her rapidly degrading mental condition, either. “I’ve heard that word before, in relation to Starks. _Mirage_.”

“Tony said he hallucinated you in Afghanistan after he escaped the Ten Rings,” he explains. “You motivated him to keep going, even though you hadn’t spoken in years.”

Her breath stills.

**_We’ve done this before, you and I. Bit of a role reversal. I was dying in a barren hellhole and you told me to get off my ass and get home._ **

She hadn’t known this before. She’s _certain_. Tony would never have admitted this in life; not to her. His pride wouldn’t have let him.

Phil had known, though. The _hallucination_ had known.

How had a hallucination known _more_ than her?

It wasn’t possible. Everything that Tony had told her… had come from the part of herself that _hadn’t_ wanted to die in that alien wasteland.

Where else could it have come from?

**_A line of solid warmth pressed against her side._ **

And then, words, older than that memory.

**_Tony Stark’s story is not yet finished._ **

Her hands are visibly trembling now, and everything inside her feels shaken, loose, even more than it already was. She shoves her hands into her pockets when she sees him staring, but the damage is already done. His face is stony when he meets her gaze.

“If it makes you feel better, this isn’t entirely for you. Your family has been worried sick,” he says. “I’ve already made the calls - but you need to see them. I’ll not have an angry redhead storming my ultra-secret, underground base just because you’re being stubborn.”

Her family. Pepper, Rhodey… _Morgan_. Their faces flash in her mind, particularly one she hasn’t allowed herself to know yet. She probably still won’t, when she gets back.

But she has a message to deliver.

**_Tell her… I love her 3000._ **

He arches an eyebrow questioningly, and she can’t do anything but nod tiredly in agreement.

“Home it is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** MCU Context: **
> 
> **Decimation:** So, when I first wrote this chapter, I didn't realize that Jane Foster hadn't survived the Decimation in MCU canon and Darcy Lewis had (as far as I know).
> 
> Now I can't change it because Foster's role in my canon will be very important in the coming decades.
> 
> So I'm kinda handwaving this by doing it this way - somehow, due to the butterfly effect caused by the existence of Isabelle Collins in this universe, Jane Foster was not chosen randomly by the Gauntlet when Thanos Snapped his fingers - instead, Darcy was. Jane was one of the Survivors who worked with Tony Stark and Phil Coulson in an attempt to bring back the Decimated.
> 
> Selvig was Snapped too.
> 
> ** General Context: **
> 
> **Dark Energy and Dark Matter:** This is actually a real, actual concept.
> 
> Most of the universe is made of dark energy. It's not actually dark, it's just called that because scientists are 'in the dark' about it.
> 
> This term is hugely important in my fic. My entire plot hinges on dark energy. You will notice that I use this term very, very carefully - I don't go throwing it around willy-nilly.
> 
> Dark Energy is responsible for expanding the universe, pushing away all stars and all planets and all matter from each other.
> 
> Dark Matter is the thing that holds our galaxies together. It produces gravity because scientists have determined that the percentage of ordinary matter in our universe doesn't produce enough gravitational force to hold it all together, so it must be 'dark matter'.
> 
> The two terms are not interchangeable terms - in fact, they're basically opposites.
> 
> ** Russian Translations: **
> 
> 1\. Help me, please.  
> 2\. I am Isabelle. Phone?  
> 3\. I know you!  
> 4\. Destroyer! Avenger!
> 
> This week’s AoS episode, ‘Know Your Onions’, kinda cleared a personality trait of Daisy Johnson for me. I’m glad because it means that I pegged her character pretty right in the chapter. Fate, I guess?


	8. Away With Us He’s Going

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where in the World is Spider-Man?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next few chapters deal with the immediate aftermath of Spider-Man: Far From Home. The events - and revelations - in the movie provided a perfect bridge between the universes of Mass Effect and MCU, even though these chapters deal with just the subtlest hints of what I'm planning.
> 
> I apologize for the late update; there was an earthquake scare in my neck of the woods. It shook us all up pretty badly (pun fully intended).
> 
> Much thanks to my beta, ElessarII.

_Away with us he's going,_

_The solemn-eyed:_

_…_

_For he comes, the human child,_

_To the waters and the wild_

_With a faery, hand in hand,_

_For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand._

\- The Stolen Child; William Butler Yeats

  
  


**July 10th, 2024**

**LOCATION: ABANDONED HANGAR, MANHATTAN**

The hangar’s doors slam shut as the Man in Black drives in.

He climbs out, walks over to the Captain, and hands over a sheaf of papers, before gazing speculatively at the truck behind him. The Captain doesn’t spare more than a single glance at the documents.

“Didn’t think you’d be requiring our services again, sir,” he tells the Man, activating his tablet, “in light of the cancellation orders on the 2017 assignment.” The Captain swipes through various windows on the tablet, and behind him, the design on the side of the truck changes with every potential disguise he offers.

The Man stares as the tablet cycles through _Bendeery English Ale_ to _Eagle Postal Services._ “There was a last-minute update on that mission. I recall you were well compensated for the inconvenience.”

The Captain’s wince is noticeable enough for the Man to arch an eyebrow in question. “That’s not the issue, sir. It’s just that... this is a big one. The whole world is going to have eyes on it. Chances of backfiring are high.”

The Man in Black looks at him impassively. “All the missions were _‘big’_ , Captain,” he says. “You just weren’t aware of the scale.” He points to the latest design on the tablet. “I believe Rush’s Cleaning Services would be ideal.”

The Captain looks doubtfully at the side of the truck. A cartoon figure holding a mop smiles cheerfully at him, and below him, the bright yellow tagline exclaims _We love Dirty Jobs!_

“Most don’t choose that, because it’s rather... memorable.”

The Man walks over to the rear of the truck, opens the back door and nods approvingly at the rows of armed and armored men staring at him. “Precisely,” he says, climbing in, and shuts the door.

* * *

**STARK RESIDENCE, GEORGIA, ATLANTA**

“How’s work?” Rhodey asks.

“Stocks continue to go down,” Pepper says, forking her eggs. “We - Tony had been working on some ideas - F.R.I.D.A.Y. 's been filling the gaps and fabricating trial products. But more and more investors are backing out every day. Think I might have to start outsourcing soon.”

Isabelle twirls her knife between her fingers. She’s only taken a few bites, but she’s already full.

Communal breakfast has become mandatory since Coulson dropped her off at the lakehouse. Pepper’s trying her level best, but Isabelle isn’t the only one to whom this feels more like an obligation than a family gathering. Morgan’s already eaten and left, eager to be away from the silent storm that’s brewing between the adults.

“S.I. isn’t what’s worrying me though,” Pepper says mildly, sipping coffee from her mug. “Water bill’s skyrocketing.”

Isabelle resists the urge to rub her forehead, already anticipating the migraine this conversation is going to lead to. She doesn’t respond, but Pepper doesn’t need her to. The redhead has had years of practice dealing with recalcitrant Starks, and she doesn’t shy away from using her experience as a weapon.

“I really don’t appreciate having to refill the pool every morning either,” Rhodey mutters around a mouthful of bacon.

They’re both staring at her now with identical unimpressed faces. She supposes she should be grateful Happy isn’t here to make it a trio. She wouldn’t have tolerated this from _him_.

“ _Fine_. I’ll remember to do it after I finish my laps,” she tells him evenly, completely ignoring Pepper’s statement.

This isn’t the first time they’ve brought this up. Few bother with passive-aggressive commentary anymore - another side effect of the Decimation, because no one thinks they have the _time_. People have learned to expect the other shoe to drop at any moment, and want to fix any and all problems now, now, _now_ because tomorrow they might _literally_ not exist.

Pepper and Rhodey have become overprotective since she disappeared on them again. They seem to have forgotten the concept of _space_. She understands it, to an extent, but it’s not like she keeps vanishing intentionally.

“You aren’t sleeping.”

She opens her mouth to say something that would’ve been scathing and undeniably hurtful, but just then F.R.I.D.A.Y. interrupts them with a hologram projected over the dining table.

“ _Boss Lady, Colonel, skipper - sorry for the interruption, but I figured you’d wanna see this.”_

Humans aren’t the only ones who have been having trouble dealing. Isabelle’s been here twelve days, and not once has F.R.I.D.A.Y. operated any of her emotional subroutines.

Until now.

The thinly suppressed worry in the A.I.’s fine Irish brogue is enough to make Rhodey sit up. “What have you got for us, FRI?”

Pepper inhales sharply as the irritatingly familiar figure of one J. Jonah Jameson appears on the screen, practically frothing at the mouth, a manic glee in his eyes that promises nothing good for whoever he’s chosen to target today.

And his victim is none other than Peter Benjamin Parker, seventeen, and newly exposed as Spider-Man, a murderer of heroes.

The last she’d heard of the kid was that Fury had called him in to deal with the elementals rampaging across Europe.

Pepper and Rhodey are on their feet, the former barking orders furiously on her phone as they watch the editor-in-chief of the _Daily Bugle_ drag Spider-Man’s name through the mud.

Izzy remains seated, her body gradually unwinding from the tension from before. Everything’s settled inside her now, replaced by the burn of adrenaline flooding her veins. Talking doesn’t help, home doesn’t help, but _this_ ; _trouble_ has always helped her focus and forget everything else.

She hasn’t even realized, but all this time she’s been home, she has been looking for a target - someone to hurt, someone to _rip apart_.

Her eyes linger on the video footage Jameson had displayed for all the world to see - more specifically on the man responsible for framing Spider-Man for the drone attacks on London.

She can feel Rhodey’s gaze on her, and isn’t surprised when he asks, “What do you know?”

He’s always been able to see past all her masks.

She points a knife at the mysterious man shooting green fire out of his hands. “I’ve seen him before.”

“He was on the nightly news a few days ago, for that incident with the water elemental in Italy.”

“ _L'uomo del mistero_ ,” she says, the vowels rolling off her tongue perfectly. “I heard. I don’t mean that, though. I mean from before.”

“Explain,” and that’s Pepper, who’s flushed with rage and panic.

“I saw him only once,” Isabelle explains, and she still hasn’t risen from her seat. “And I may be wrong about this, but I don’t think I am - I think he worked for Stark Industries.”

Pepper blinks at the hologram. F.R.I.D.A.Y. zooms in on Mysterio’s face without being prompted.

“I don’t remember him,” Pepper admits. Rhodey nods in agreement.

Isabelle sighs and straightens. She doesn’t really want to do this, but what choice does she have? If she’s right, then they can halt the oncoming storm before it even begins to up and destroy Parker’s life. Bonus if she gets to help knock J. Jonah Jameson off his self-righteous pedestal.

“You wouldn’t,” she says, and her voice is as gentle as she can make it. This is a part of her life she never wants to revisit, but when has any Stark gotten what they want? She looks at Peter’s face in the video, his clearly doctored voice demanding that the drones be deployed on the citizens.

She isn’t going to let him be dragged over the coals for this.

“I got a glimpse of him during the 2016 September Foundation speech,” she explains quietly.

Both Pepper and Rhodey flinch. That particular MIT presentation was the start of the collapse of the rest of their lives. Rhodey had lost his legs, she had lost the baby, Tony had lost… _everything_.

And Pepper had been there for none of it.

Isabelle doesn’t blame her. She has never needed to. Her sister-in-law still wears guilt and grief like a shroud.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y.?” Pepper asks thickly.

“ _Scanning the records of all known S.I. employees now_ ,” the A.I. confirms.

“Filter search for employees who got demoted to the ‘ex’ status during that time period,” Isabelle says, flipping the knife between her index and middle fingers, and the A.I. complies.

“Are you sure about this?” Pepper asks, but her fingers are already flying across her phone.

“ _Facial recognition confirmed_ ,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. chimes, and there’s a tone in her usually pleasant voice that Isabelle is sure her creator hadn’t programmed into her.

Vindictive rage is the closest approximation.

But then, the A.I.’s always been extraordinarily protective of the Spiderling.

She projects another hologram, and on it is displayed a document with Mysterio’s photo on it.

“ _Quentin Beck, former Stark Industries employee, designer of the holographic interface used in the Binarily Augmented Retro-Framing prototype technology. Boss booted him from S.I. personally when he proved to be emotionally unstable despite his genius.”_

All three of them raise their eyebrows. Tony Stark, firing someone for having a low EQ? Tony was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a hypocrite. He’d have made sure his employees got the proper treatment for any mental health issues; hell, he’d have footed their bills himself - he wouldn’t just unceremoniously kick them out.

Not unless he had a damn good reason.

“Define ‘emotionally unstable’,” Rhodey orders.

“ _There are multiple restraining orders against Mr. Beck, and it seems like he’s verbally threatened a few of his coworkers when they didn’t agree with him. More than one psychiatrist has diagnosed him as bipolar, but someone had buried those records long before he ever applied for S.I. He’s also threatened the boss himself._ ”

“How could we have missed this?” Pepper asks, hand on her mouth.

“We were missing out on a lot of things at that time,” Rhodey growls.

Isabelle finally rises and gently taps twice on the table with the knife to get their attention. “You have more than enough to work your magic, Miss Potts. Will that be all?”

The redhead flinches again at the familiar to and fro, and Isabelle shuts her eyes. Those words... have never been _hers_.

“That will be all, Miss Stark,” she says finally, acknowledging the familiar repartee, even though neither of them has gone by those titles in _years_. There’s steel in her eyes - God save Jonah Jameson because Pepper Potts-Stark is going to _skin_ him alive.

She’s been protective of Peter since that fateful battle in Leipzig. And May Parker and Pepper had gotten along like a house on fire.

Isabelle suppresses a sigh. That had been her and Pepper, once, until the Civil War had broken her in ways she didn’t think was possible. The engagement had offered them a second chance - but they had barely started building what had been so thoroughly broken before she was literally wiped out of existence.

And now.

Now, Isabelle doesn’t think she wants to try again. They are too broken, too torn apart to be put back together again, no matter how much her sister-in-law wants them to try.

“What are you going to do?” Rhodey asks, and his voice is soft, and Isabelle knows without looking at him that he knows what’s going through her head because he’s always been able to read her. He still looks at her like the woman he’d fallen in love with, had grieved with, had lost - first to Thanos, then to herself.

She can’t stand that, not right now.

She forces herself to meet his eyes. “I’m going to extract the kid, and figure out how Fury could’ve missed something this big.”

“You think he could be involved?”

“Explains why _I_ wasn’t called in for this,” she shrugs and points towards the gigantic water monster crashing down on the Grand Canal.

Rhodey realizes at the same time as Pepper that Isabelle could’ve stopped this before it got so out of hand. She would’ve immediately recognized it as a fake because she wouldn’t have sensed the elemental.

“The jet’s waiting for you at the airstrip,” Pepper says and she nods her thanks and pulls off her jacket from the rack. She's glad neither of them tries to stop her. “I’m gonna get my lawyers on this.”

“Be careful,” two voices echo from behind her as she slips through the door.

“Never,” Isabelle whispers as her skin morphs into water and she takes to the skies.

* * *

**LOCATION: UNKNOWN**

Peter comes to with a gasp.

The first thing he sees when he wrenches open his eyes is a bald man in a suit looking at him impassively, hands resting on a silver suitcase, surrounded by heavily armed soldiers. Peter can hear a muffled growl emerging from beneath the floor, and the narrow space trembles for a second before settling.

He’s inside a vehicle.

Peter instinctively attempts to shove himself off his seat, only to find his hips collared to the wall with a shiny magnetic cuff that doesn’t budge even when he applies his full, enhanced strength against it. A brief second of frantic examination determines it’s worse - two collars around his wrists and ankles truss him up, and another magnetic one sits snugly around his neck.

His muscles strain against the restraints futilely for a long minute, before he slumps back.

“Vibranium alloy,” the bald man explains. “The cervical harness is also equipped with power-dampeners, so I would not waste energy trying to escape.”

Peter’s eyes widen. He remembers that voice. It was the same voice that had called out his full name - _Peter Benjamin Parker_ \- in the garage he’d been hiding in as fully armed men had spread out, alert, with weapons at the ready.

Not once had he ever wanted to fight soldiers - brave men and women just doing their jobs, much like how he had tried to - so he’d given up without a fight.

He remembers nothing after that.

“Are you taking me to the Raft?” he asks, and he’s proud when his voice doesn’t tremble.

The bald man tilts his head. “I do not have clearance for that place. And I would not take you there even if I did.”

“I’m innocent,” Peter tries, without much hope.

“Yes.”

Peter blinks, certain he’d heard wrong, but the man doesn’t look inclined to change his words. “You… _what_?”

“I am aware that you were framed for murder by Quentin Beck, also known to the world at large as Mysterio.”

“Then why,” he finally croaks, shakes his head. “ - _who_ are you? What do you want?”

“My name is Enoch, and I am an anthropologist,” he replies calmly. “I believe we may be able to assist each other.”

Peter’s watched enough movies to know how this goes. “Let me guess,” he snarls, his fists clenching in fear and fury, “ - I do something nasty for you, and you help prove me innocent? No, _thanks_.”

“The whole world is hunting Spider-Man,” he continues as though he hadn’t been interrupted. “The safest place for Peter Parker right now is inside this truck, listening to me. _Listen_ , not _obey_. You will soon realize you have very little choice in the matter.”

Enoch nods at one of the soldiers, who withdraws a remote from his breast pocket with a red button. Peter stiffens, his eyes widening in panic. He struggles futilely, then braces himself as the soldier hits the button.

The collars open with a synchronized click.

His abilities return with a rush that leaves him stunned. After a moment, he exhales and rubs at his wrists wonderingly. He brushes his fingers against his right jeans pocket as subtly as he can, breathing an internal sigh of relief when he feels the familiar frame poking him.

At least they hadn’t found E.D.I.T.H. He doesn’t know what he’d have done if he’d lost her again.

He looks speculatively at Enoch and his row of soldiers, the latter of which is looking at him warily. They aren’t attacking, but he spots a few fingers twitching towards their weapons.

Enoch looks as unnervingly impassive as ever.

Peter’s curiosity trumps over his instincts.

“Why would an _anthropologist_ want to help me?”

“Because you are needed for greater destinies,” he replies instantly. “Destinies you cannot fulfill from within an underwater detention center.”

**_Well, that’s disturbingly vague._ ** “How are you going to help me?”

Enoch opens the silver case on his lap and turns it around. Peter’s jaw drops as he looks at the shiny, brand-new, and _incredibly_ illegal contents. “I am not,” the older man says. “All I can offer you are the resources to help _yourself_.”

Peter’s hands brush against the gravelly cover of a passport. “Destinies,” he whispers. “I don’t… What am I supposed to do?”

“Unknown.”

“ _Where_ exactly am I supposed to go?”

“Unknown.”

His heart should be soaring, because his Spidey-Sense doesn’t detect these men as threats, and Enoch himself has done nothing but give him literally everything he needs to find a way out of this mess. But it just drives the stake of one unmistakable truth deeper into his heart.

He’s utterly, completely alone.

“Will I succeed?” His voice is very small.

This time, there’s just the briefest hesitation before Enoch answers.

“ _Unknown_.”

* * *

**July 13th, 2024** ****

**LOCATION: OUTSIDE GEORGIA AIRSPACE**

The exhaustion of fruitless searching and deliberate insomnia is threatening to pull her under, but it doesn’t stop Isabelle from yanking herself off her seat once they’re in the air and striding towards the flight deck, from which Happy’s already emerging, looking relieved.

“Autopilot's engaged and the cloaking’s on,” he tells her. “F.R.I.D.A.Y’s gonna be monitoring the airwaves for chatter.”

“I should be down there,” she all but snarls. “Ross is on the warpath, and he’s targeting anyone associated with Spider-Man. Pepper and Rhodey…”

“ - are a hell of a lot safer than you are,” he tells her. “Pepper has SI’s lawyers working overtime to keep the Secretary at bay. Rhodey has the Air Force’s backing - they’re not gonna wanna give up the armor. You… have _nothing_ , and don’t give me that crap about S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“…I wasn’t going to,” she finally admits. “I don’t trust them any more than you.” She ignores the pang that statement provokes. “But I don’t need anyone’s protection - I can handle Ross myself.”

Isabelle hadn’t been able to swallow the bitter pill when President Kelly had nominated Ross for the Secretary position _yet again_. She had anticipated further trouble from him, but not so soon.

He wants to make an example. Parker’s head on a pike is a good way to go about it.

“I know,” he says, swiping at a tablet, his face tight with tense anticipation. “He isn’t why I got you out. Pepper wants you to take a look at something.” His eyes meet hers. “Something that we think has to do with Parker’s disappearance.”

She blinks, straightens at the tone of his voice, earlier indignation promptly forgotten. “What’d you have?”

He doesn’t seem to mind her abruptness - either he’s gotten used to her general demeanor over the years or he’s just eager to show her what he’s found. Judging by how he jogs across the cabin, it’s more of the latter this time. “Wasn’t actually me,” he’s explaining as she follows him, “ - F.R.I.D.A.Y. caught and archived footage from an ancient surveillance camera in one of the seedier parts of Manhattan.”

“Thought you’d already analyzed all of it and come up negative,” Isabelle addresses the AI.

“ _I did,”_ F.R.I.D.A.Y. replies over the intercom, “ - _but this one is… new. All the surveillance cameras within a two-mile radius went dark for thirty seconds; like someone wiped off this footage before putting it back in. What’s stranger is that there’s no digital trace of what happened to it anywhere.”_

“None of this sounds legitimate.”

“ _I happen to agree.”_

“Bring it up, girl,” Isabelle commands, turning to the screen on the side of the cabin.

The footage displays a blurry, staticky image of a street. A cleaners’ truck pulls up alongside one of the abandoned buildings, and an entire company of armed soldiers burst out of the back, followed by a tall bald man in a suit.

The company disappears into the building, and after long, tense minutes, brings out a stretcher on which a figure lies bound. They pull in the figure - motionless, stiff as a board - shut the door, and the truck drives off.

Isabelle inhales. The footage is too grainy to determine whether the figure was Peter Parker but she can’t find it in herself to ignore the voice inside her insisting that this is a real lead. “Where'd the truck go?”

“We tracked every surveillance camera that leads from that street, but we couldn’t find it,” Happy says, “ - which is where this gets interesting.” He gestures towards the screen and F.R.I.D.A.Y. obligingly brings up multiple footages from before and after the mysterious abduction.

All showcase different vehicles on different roads - one was a beer truck, another: a postal truck - but no _Rush’s Cleaning Services_ anywhere.

“We were stumped. Went through it for hours, had almost given it up as a lost cause but then Pepper had an idea - she made F.R.I.D.A.Y. carry out a structural analysis of all the trucks,” he says, “ - et _voila_.” On the screen, F.R.I.D.A.Y. highlights the wireframes of all the trucks and superimposes them on top of one another.

The result is an exact match.

“ _I followed the truck’s route using the surveillance_ _and pinpointed its destination while Mr. Hogan extracted you before Secretary Ross stormed the lakehouse.”_ The A.I. brings up a map and zooms in on a location.

Isabelle stays silent for a long time. “Might not be him,” she says, and her voice is not gentle. She feels Happy bristle. “Even if it is, it’s been four days. He might be anywhere. He might be d…”

Happy interrupts before she can finish that sentence with the one potential truth neither of them is willing to live with. “That street was on our list of potential places the kid might’ve disappeared to after Jameson outed him,” he argues, and his eyes are too bright. “And I’ve seen that level of illusion tech - all too recently, in fact. Hell, that is small potatoes compared to what _I_ saw.”

“Beck is dead, Happy.”

His fists are clenched, but she knows his anger isn’t directed towards her. “ _Illusion. Tech,”_ he repeats through gritted teeth. “And even if he is… do you really think he was working alone?”

“Could be fake. Could be a trap.”

“Why do you think we picked you?”

She arches an eyebrow at him, and her mouth quirks up with more amusement than she feels. “Thanks for that.”

He raises his arms, but his expression is stubborn. “If I’ve learned anything about Starks over the years - it’s that _traps can’t hold you_. If this _is_ him - we need a Stark to get him out.”

“Haven’t been that for a long time.”

His glare tells her he knows exactly what she’s doing - trying to find a reason to believe that this isn’t what they’re both hoping it is, a way to find Spider-Man - and that he’s not impressed by her half-hearted efforts. She sighs, and he slumps in relief. “Still didn’t need you to come. I could’ve handled this myself.”

He looks at her for a long moment. “Izzy - after F.R.I.D.A.Y. zeroed in on the target… the original footage disappeared again. No trace of it, anywhere on the Internet. She’s the only one who has a copy of it.”

“Someone _wanted_ us to find it,” she surmises. “ _Definitely_ a trap.”

“Pepper knew you didn’t need help. But _Peter_ might. That’s why I’m here.” He sighs, rubs at his forehead, before shuffling back to the cockpit. “I’m just grateful Ross won’t get his hands on it.”

She stills, shuts her eyes, hearing the echo of a clock ticking down in her mind. Her heart beats a rapid staccato against her ribs.

“Ross isn’t the only one looking,” she mutters, too quietly for him to hear.

It’s a long time before she can tear her gaze away from the stiff figure on the frozen still of the footage.

* * *

**July 14th, 2024**

**LOCATION: ABANDONED HANGAR, MANHATTAN**

Isabelle lands lightly just beyond the aircraft entrance, the hood on her stealth suit pulling up automatically as she looks over at the huge metallic doors.

Happy had parked the jet in a clearing deep into the woods surrounding the hangar and is currently canvassing the rear. He’d grudgingly agreed to keep a low profile at her insistence while she draws any potential fire from the nine heat signatures F.R.I.D.A.Y. detected within the facility. There’s no sign of the truck, but that doesn’t mean anything - she has been warned that everything she sees inside had the potential to be an illusion.

It’s why she had pulled up the hood.

The HUD flickers on, scanning for any heat emitted by Stark Industries drones and finding none. F.R.I.D.A.Y. hacks into the automated controls of the hangar, and the entrance doors slide open with a low grind, displaying a well-illuminated interior.

The hangar is bare, except for a few large metal containers spread haphazardly across the vast space and one familiar white truck with a blank side at the far end. Pipes run in an elaborate network just below the ceiling, interrupted by valves, faucets, and heavy-duty smoke detectors.

Her figure shimmers into fluid as she walks in. They’re waiting for her, armed to the teeth with automatics, gathered around a tall broad man she assumes is their Captain.

“This ends one way,” she addresses him in a low voice. “You tell me what I want to know - or I _make_ you tell me. _Where is Spider-Man?_ ”

His expression doesn’t change as he lifts a tiny device and presses a red button.

She blinks as the sound in her suit cuts off and her suit freezes around her. She can’t budge an inch. “F.R.I.D.A.Y.?” she demands, staring at the men who had looked ready to rip her to shred with their weapons just a moment ago, but now are relaxed, even conversing with each other in low voices.

“ _You were being exposed to a specific high-pitched sonic frequency that paralyzed you. I couldn’t hack the transmitter, so I cut off your external audio feed and microphone and immobilized your suit to keep up the appearance that the device is working.”_

Her blood runs cold. “The Sonic Taser,” she murmurs, recalling the last time it had been used.

“ _Not exactly, but runs on similar principles, yes. Skipper… you just lost forty seconds._ ”

“Didn’t even realize it,” she says, eying the blinking transmitter in the Captain’s hands and specialized plastic plugs sealing all of their ears. “What’re they saying?”

“ _Trying to figure out how to contain you in your fluid form. Suspension gel matrix seems to be the most popular course of action.”_

She exhales. They’re starting to amble towards her, their weapons idle. “You know what to do.”

“ _Yep_.”

F.R.I.D.A.Y. 's response syncs up beautifully with her intentions, and the suit regains mobility the moment one of the soldiers get close enough to - what, Isabelle can’t tell, it’s not as if he’s going to be able to _touch_ her in her current form.

Her hand shoots out, grabs an arm, and deep-freezes until the soldier drops the assault rifle with a yell. Her icy right hook is hard enough that she can feel his nose shatter under her fist, and she follows it up with a knee to the gut that sends him crumpling to the ground.

She feels a second soldier creeping up behind her and ducks under his swing. Her fingers curl around the plug in his ear and yank it out. Predictably, he freezes in place, still as a statue, his expression one of comic disbelief.

The external speakers are still down, so she doesn’t register the gunshots until F.R.I.D.A.Y. cries out a warning.

“ _Skipper, watch out!_ ”

Her head shoots up, just in time to register the muzzle flash a bright electric blue.

She stumbles when the first bullet passes her right leg, and the realization that she _felt_ the impact at all freezes her for a brief, stupid second, long enough for a couple more to glance off her fluid form before she has the presence of mind to dive behind a container.

“What the hell…” she gasps, as her body immediately reforms into flesh and bone.

“ _Non-lethal tranquilizers therapeutically dosed with a biochemical agent,_ ” F.R.I.D.A.Y. brings up a body scan on her hood’s HUD, zooming in on her leg, through which she can see the sluggish spread of bluish veins.

“Where the hell did they get goddamn I.C.E.R.s,” she growls.

“ _The bullet passed through harmlessly, but the dendrotoxin penetrated your body via a variation of hypodermoclysis. I am attempting to flush it out of your system using the suit’s water reserves, but I suggest you find an alternative before you lose consciousness._ ”

“I’m not gonna last long enough to take them all out,” she mutters, already feeling the effects of the toxin moving sluggishly beneath her skin. She glances up at the paneled ceiling and narrows her eyes at disk-shaped structures mounted on the ceiling, then ducks as another bullet zings above her head. “How many of the hangar systems do you have access to?”

The HUD zooms in on the device without prompting and brings up its schematics. “ _I like the way you think_ ,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. says just before she activates the fire sprinklers.

The sluice of cold water streams washes out the worst of the toxin from her body, just in time for her to tug an enemy over from the side of the cover where he’d been creeping. He comes crashing to the floor beside her, and she punches his face hard enough to knock him out. “Non-lethal, right?” she asks, grabbing the assault rifle, and checking the ammunition cartridges, which are glowing a bright blue.

F.R.I.D.A.Y. doesn’t respond, just reconfigures the targets on her display as Isabelle rounds around the cover and aims with her rifle. She picks them off one by one until the Captain tosses a similarly glowing grenade her way, and she has to dive out of cover to avoid the dendrotoxin-fueled haze that erupts when the bomb explodes.

Isabelle engages the remaining soldiers in close-combat, not bothering to return to her water form. The next few moments are a blur of punches and kicks as they struggle to fire off a shot that wouldn’t end up as friendly fire.

After what seems like long minutes, it’s just her and the Captain, trading blows in the hangar in the midst of a continuous outpouring of water from the sprinklers above them. He’s much better trained than his men, and bigger than her, and adrenaline curls up hot in her veins when she’s forced to apply her skills to their full extent.

Neither of them is able to gain the upper hand, and she’s still feeling the lingering effects of the dendrotoxin, which is why she isn’t able to duck underneath his meaty arm before it wraps around her neck, and she feels the tight press of a muzzle on her spine. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees his mouth moving silently.

“ _You slip into your liquid form, I empty the gun inside you_ ,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. repeats even as Isabelle struggles against the tight grip of his arm against her neck.

She’s just about to chamber her knee and kick his shin when the audio returns in a rush, and a calm unfamiliar voice slices through the rapid pitter-patter of the water sprinkling down from the pipes. “It’s alright, Captain. She’s the one we’ve been waiting for.”

The Captain roughly turns her around and she breathes as she spots Happy scowling and holding a revolver to a tall stranger’s head. “ _I_ don’t carry tranqs,” her friend growls, shoving the man forward. “Let her go.”

The Captain doesn’t budge until the stranger - tall, bald, in a suit - nods slightly, his face calm even under the threat of having his brains blown out. She feels the arm retract from around her throat, and he shoves her away before she can twist around to grab his gun.

She straightens, her hood rising and looks over at Happy. “Parker?” she asks, willing the adrenaline to cool down. The water sprinklers switch off as the last of the toxin washes out of her system.

Happy shakes his head. “No sign of him. Found this one skulking around the back,” he gestures sharply to the tall stranger, whose eyes haven’t left hers since he entered the hangar. “He said he wanted to talk to you. Mentioned you by name and everything.”

“You… were _waiting_ for me?”

The stranger holds her eyes impassively. “Of course. After all, it was I who uploaded that footage back into the surveillance grid.”

“You did not warn us we’d have to take on an _Avenger_ ,” the Captain tells him crossly, placing the gun back into his hip holster. “The Stasis Device didn’t work on her at all.”

“Perhaps I should have used the word ‘accommodate’ instead of _‘engage’_ ,” the tall man replies. “This entire misunderstanding could’ve been avoided.”

The Captain scowls as he crouches next to his men, checking their vitals and administering what she assumes is the antidote for the dendrotoxin.

She turns to the newcomer. “Who are you? What’ve you done with Spider-Man?” Isabelle finally places him as the man responsible for leading the company into that abandoned building in the footage F.R.I.D.A.Y. had shown her.

“My name is Enoch Coltrane, and I’m an anthropologist,” he replies calmly. “I’ll be happy to answer all your questions regarding Peter Parker, but only inside that truck,” and he points to the same white vehicle that had appeared in that footage.

“Like hell,” Happy growls, tightening his grip on his gun.

Enoch turns to him. “You’re quite welcome to keep your weapons at the ready if it provides you comfort. But if you want answers, you’ll only find them in there.” And he turns around and starts walking to the rear of the hangar without further ado. Happy utters a muffled oath, shoots a questioning glance at her, then struggles to catch up.

Isabelle shoots one last look at the Captain who’s ignoring her and muttering to the men he’s woken up, then falls behind Happy.

* * *

**July 15th, 2024**

Happy makes F.R.I.D.A.Y. examine the truck for any traps before he allows Isabelle to step foot inside. She doesn’t have a problem waiting patiently - he’d been a lot more useful than her so far into the mission. And F.R.I.D.A.Y. had used the time to find further information on their mysterious lead.

When they’re finally seated, with the door bolted, Happy immediately shoves a StarkPad at Enoch. The latter glances at the grainy footage for a brief second before turning back to them. “Yes,” he answers the unasked question. “I did not realize the record would be so distorted, but it served its purpose well regardless.”

“Enoch Coltrane, Professor of Anthropology at NYU,” she says, and her voice is cold as ice. “I’m thinking of a lot of unsavory reasons why a _professor_ would want to abduct a _seventeen-year-old_ , and every single one of them would put you in a hole so deep you’d forget what sunlight and fresh air feels like.”

Happy picks up the cues she lays out and immediately assumes the position of good cop. “Why did you upload the footage a week after Spider-Man was declared a missing fugitive?”

“Because you were looking for Peter Parker in all the wrong places. You’re searching for him in the United North American States, but the fact is that if he had still been here, he’d have long been captured. Secretary Ross’ influence reaches far deeper than you could possibly imagine.”

There’s a strange tightness in her chest. “Where did you take Peter Parker?” Her breath is misting over, but Happy doesn’t pay it any heed, his posture stiff, face incensed with rage.

“To the John F. Kennedy International Airport,” is the swift reply.

Happy rears back slightly, blinking. “You… where did you take him from _there_?”

Enoch shakes his head. “I did not accompany him on his travels. I only gave him the necessary false documentation, photostatic veils, and other tools he needed to make his escape and prove his innocence.”

“Documentation - like fake passports, visas?” He nods. “Visas to where?”

“Venice; Italy. Prague; the Czech Republic. Berlin; Germany. London, the United Kingdom. I do not know what destinations he chose from those options, nor what other decisions he might’ve chosen once he reached them.”

“The same locations as on his summer field trip itinerary,” Happy says, his eyes widening. “You were _helping_ him. Why?”

“Because Peter Parker is essential for the universe’s continued survival,” he says quietly, and his dark gaze bores into hers until it’s all she sees. It’s suffocating, an impossible burden like Atlas’, but she doesn’t break eye contact. “As are you… _Isabelle Morgana Stark_.”

She stiffens, and Happy shoots a startled glance her way. Very few people know her middle name - Peggy Carter had never added it to the S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel files Romanoff had eventually dumped onto the internet. For this man, this utter _stranger_ , to know of it…

Before she can ask any further questions, Enoch’s watch beeps out an alert, and he looks at it. “We’re out of time,” he says, and for the first time, a frown mars his features. “I apologize; I did not account for a confrontation between yourself and the men I hired.” He reaches into his pockets and withdraws three familiar plastic plug pairs, pushing one inside his ear. “Please, put these on.”

“Wait, what…” Happy is interrupted by a muffled bang from outside the truck, and the sound of men shouting.

Isabelle already has her fingers around the bolt, but stills when Enoch makes an aborted motion. “Those are Secretary Ross’ men out there,” he murmurs, “ - and he’s brought in reinforcements. You will not be able to take them alone, and even if you do - can you really afford to be a fugitive?”

“How does Ross even know…?” Happy breaks off, his eyes widening. “He caught the footage too.”

“It was a risk I was willing to take,” he says urgently, staring at her. “ _Please_ , put these on.”

She hesitates, then nods at Happy and moves to take the plug, but he retracts his fingers slightly. She narrows her eyes, and something ticks at the back of her mind, but the yelling is louder now, more insistent and certainly a lot closer, so she shoves it out of her mind and stretches out her hand. He drops it, being careful not to touch her. She plugs in the pair.

The shouting stops as suddenly as it had started. She takes a deep breath, then slowly unlocks the door and slips out, peering out from the side of the truck for a brief second before relaxing.

“What the hell?” Happy mutters as the three of them walk towards the row of frozen armed figures on the far side of the room, in the center of which is a tall, red-faced familiar figure, his face contorted unpleasantly. They’re all still as statues, as though playing an elaborate, bizarre game of _Red Light, Green Light._

Enoch’s own men are moving about freely, hurriedly packing up their gear and piling into the same white truck she had just exited.

Happy hesitates before waving a hand in front of Thaddeus Ross’ face, who doesn’t so much as blink in response. He swallows, unnerved.

Isabelle’s eyes, however, skip Ross completely to land on another shorter, balding figure slightly at his back, his own motionless fingers curled around a weapon. His expression is intent, but his frozen eyes betray inner displeasure at this entire situation.

“Ross didn’t get the footage,” she says, staring at Phil Coulson with an ache in her chest that she doesn’t want to examine too deeply. “ _S.H.I.E.L.D_. did.”

“Sir,” the Captain is saying to Enoch, “ - are you sure about this?”

“Do not worry about me, Captain,” the taller man says impassively, glancing at his watch. “Once again, you have performed your services admirably. But the window closes in nine-point five minutes - you should leave. As should you, Mr. Hogan, Miss Stark. I will remain behind as a distraction.”

“You aren’t coming with us?” Happy asks, as the Captain steps into the driver’s seat of the truck and starts the vehicle. “We still have questions. You’ve told us nothing about…”

“You’ll find what you are hunting in your roots, Isabelle Stark,” Enoch says, and it’s only because she’s so impossibly tuned to this stranger that she even hears the rushed tone of his speech. “Eight and three-quarters of a minute remaining.”

She stares at him for a long second, then grabs Happy’s arm when he attempts to stalk forward angrily. “We need to go,” she tells him with a calm she doesn’t feel. He glares at her, then softens at the look on her face. “We need to go, _now_ , Hap.”

He grits his teeth, nods, and they rush out of the hangar entrance through which the truck had just exited.

Isabelle spares one last glance at the man inside the hangar who is willing to take a fall for people he barely knows and for reasons she can hardly discern, then turns around and sprints towards the woods.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Context:**
> 
> Enoch Coltrane and his 'camouflage truck' also make an appearance in Season 5 of the series. People who are up to date with the show know exactly who he is, but for those, who don't... well, neither does my character, who will discover the truth in time.
> 
> **MCU Context:**
> 
> The Sonic Taser was used by Obadiah Stane to paralyze Tony in Iron Man 1.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed it!! Let me know your thoughts in reviews!


	9. I Think of Young, Lost Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isabelle returns to her roots.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoy this chapter! Muchas gracias to my beta, ElessarII for reviewing this chapter!

_I think of young, lost things: of lilacs; tears;_

_I think of an old neighbor, long since dead._

\- A Violin at Dusk, Lizette Woodworth Reese

**July 14th, 2024**

**LOCATION:** **STARK MANSION** **\- 890, Fifth Avenue**

**Manhattan**

She hasn’t been here in more than a decade, which is the only reason why they’ve decided to keep this as a temporary base. Neither Ross nor S.H.I.E.L.D. would ever think of looking for them in the Mansion.

Since she’d arrived here this morning, she’s forced herself to move around only in the public spaces of the house, but she won’t deny that it’s easier to resist the temptation of opening certain doors - metaphorical _and_ literal - with people around.

Pepper, Rhodey, and May Parker had flown in with Happy once Isabelle had ascertained that the Secretary was holed up in the Lighthouse with Coulson for the foreseeable future, interrogating a very strange man who she isn’t entirely sure _wouldn’t_ break under pressure.

Ross hasn’t come after her or her family. That’s the only proof Isabelle has that Enoch hadn’t spilled the beans yet, but she has no guarantee he’ll last much longer if Coulson isn’t able to keep Ross’... _tendencies_ at bay.

“ _J.O.C.A.S.T.A._ _?_ ” Pepper had asked quietly as soon as she’d entered.

“ _What about her?_ ” is all Isabelle had said, prompting a tiny frown.

Most of them are gathered in the dining room - Pepper’s whispering to a tension-wracked May and Rhodey is leaning against one of the French windows with his brows furrowed. Happy is somewhere entertaining Morgan, probably showing the child around the Mansion that has mostly housed negative memories for her father and aunt.

Isabelle rubs at her forehead, trying to massage away the migraine that’s been present for what seems like days. The lack of sleep is catching up to her, and she’s already had to refill the large pool twice.

She’s not looking forward to when she finally crashes.

She pours a large amount of golden liquid into a whiskey glass and slides it across the table towards Pepper. “Bottoms up,” she mutters, pouring another for Rhodey. He doesn’t meet her eyes when their fingers brush.

May dry-swallows, her face streaked with a longing which is immediately recognizable. Isabelle isn’t the only one avoiding temptations. “I’ve been sober for two - no, wait - _seven_ years now. Do the Decimation years count?” she asks with forced humor, even though her gaze hasn’t budged from her glass.

“They don’t,” Isabelle replies, taking a slow, obvious sip. She doesn’t have to wait long.

May’s expression of desperate longing combined with self-loathing blinks out of existence, replaced by bewilderment as she sniffs. Her hand shoots out to grab the glass and she inhales deeply, then stares at the bottle. “Is that… _apple juice_ in a _Walker_ bottle?”

“Tony quit drinking too,” Rhodey murmurs for the first time since he’d entered the Mansion. He keeps staring out the window. “Pepper and Izzy threw out all of the whiskey in the Compound and the Mansion and replaced the bottles with juice.”

May arches an eyebrow, sipping hesitantly, as though she isn’t entirely sure it’s not whiskey. Her sigh sounds like disappointment and relief rolled into one. “Did it work?”

Isabelle finishes the rest of the glass and shakes her head, dropping into a chair. “Tried, tested, and rejected Stark placebo.”

“Let’s get to work.” She taps the StarkPad Pepper had brought. “Beck died in London,” she pulls up the doctored footage of Spider-Man ordering drone strikes on London civilians on his tablet, “but he had to have a _crew_ , someone behind him whose strings he's been pulling even from beyond the grave.”

May’s eyebrows draw together. “He’d have had to pick very carefully,” she catches on, “because he was pulling off something _big_ , so he’d have to trust them and they would have to trust him. Someone who would willingly follow him, because they had reasons _similar_ to his own for carrying out his crusade.”

Pepper steels herself and opens a folder of personnel files on the StarkPad. “Such as more _SI_ ex-employees. We’ve narrowed it down to those who were fired for various reasons, had a history of psychological disorders, and were known to vocally declare grudges against their former boss. The list is… big.” She rubs her forehead tiredly. “It seems Tony attracted a certain type of employee.”

“I don’t know… he lucked out with you,” Isabelle murmurs. A warm feeling settles in her stomach when she spots Pepper’s smile out of the corner of her eye.

May rapidly scrolls down the documents. “I don’t recognize any of them.”

Isabelle’s hand snakes out to halt the scrolling, then her fingers close above the highlighted image of a bald, spectacled man. The image peels off the screen into a hologram, and she tosses it into the air. A full-body projection of a man manifests itself over the dining table, rotating in on itself. “Why does he look familiar?”

“William Ginter Riva,” Pepper explains. “Former S.I. scientist and engineer co-responsible for the upkeep of the primary Arc Reactor powering the company, and… who helped reassemble the _Mark 1_ armor Obadiah Stane recovered from Afghanistan.”

**_Would she never be rid of that name?_ **

“Why’s he a prime suspect?”

“Because I’ve looked through some of his design prototypes that got approved. His name was struck from the records after he got arrested, of course, but F.R.I.D.A.Y. dug deep and found the connections. He was the primary designer of the weaponized drones that are stored in our defense satellites.”

Isabelle nods. “That explains how Beck got a hold of some to make his Elementals realistic even _before_ Parker granted him primary user access to E.D.I.T.H. We could contact the Feds, see if they have any leads.”

Pepper visibly hesitates, then sighs. “He wasn’t in federal custody. He was in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s. Coulson took him in after the Iron Monger went down. Last I heard, they were assigning him to minor designing and construction projects under strict supervision.”

**_Ah._ **

“Let me guess,” Isabelle murmurs, “he escaped during the chaos of the Snap, and they haven’t been able to recover him since. F.R.I.D.A.Y.?”

“ _I’ve been looking, but so far not a peep, skipper_ ,” the AI’s voice emerges from the tablet. “ _Riva seems to have experience hiding from our satellites._ ”

She rubs her forehead. “What do you know about him?”

“ _Jersey-born and brought up, though his ancestry is Italian. An only child, graduated from Harvard but didn’t have much luck finding employment until Stane found him. Worked on…_ ”

May makes a swift motion with her hand and F.R.I.D.A.Y. falls silent. “Would someone please tell me why we’re looking into _this guy_ instead of organizing search parties for my nephew?” she says brusquely.

“If that man Izzy interrogated is to be believed, then Peter is looking for a way to prove his innocence,” Pepper explains. “For that, he’ll need suspects. Evidence. Peter’s smart - he’ll use E.D.I.T.H. to get started. We’re just trying to figure out his next steps.”

“You think wherever this guy Riva is, that’s where Peter will be?”

Their voices blur into the background as Isabelle recalls Enoch Coltrane’s words.

**_Visas to where?_ **

**_Venice; Italy. Prague; the Czech Republic. Berlin; Germany. London, the United Kingdom._ **

“Italian?” she cuts in.

“ _Yes, Riva’s Venetian,”_ F.R.I.D.A.Y. replies. _“He used to visit his grandparents every summer in childhood until they passed._ ”

The pads of her fingers are white against the table. She can hear Enoch’s whisper - monotonous, almost robotic - in her mind. **_You’ll find what you’re hunting in your_** roots _, Isabelle Stark._

She has not a shred of evidence, only gut instinct and her belief in the words of a man she doesn’t know, and who might be leading her astray.

**_Roots_**.

She pushes herself off the dining table. “I think I know where he is.” And she tells them.

They look doubtful, but they know just as well as her that it’s the best lead they got, thin as it is. “I need to go to S.H.I.E.L.D.,” she tells them and they don’t look surprised. Rhodey stiffens.

“Ross is out for blood, and you’ll be painting a target on your back,” Pepper reminds her in a voice that tells her the redhead has been prepared for this eventuality. “And with your - ” she struggles to continue that sentence in a way that wouldn’t be insulting before shrugging in defeat, “ - unscrupulous and publicly derided past, even I can’t help you if you’re caught aiding and abetting public enemy number one.”

May’s face twists at the reminder of all the wrongs the world has done to her nephew, but she says nothing.

“Don’t worry about me,” Isabelle says. “Could you use my influence in the Lighthouse somehow?”

“It's an idea,” Rhodey says, finally turns to look at her. His expression is blank - she’s never liked when he made that face. “Coulson trusts you. We need to use that to distract them long enough for us to be able to find and get Riva.” The words sound like they’re being forced out of his mouth.

The last piece of the puzzle, tinged with his bitter unhappiness, slides into place. She looks up at Rhodey, whose desperate expression tells her that he’ll get her out of this - she just has to say the word.

Isabelle sighs. She’s always been a moth attracted to the flames of his pain. It doesn’t matter if she gets burned; she can’t stand to see him hurt.

She rises, walks up to him and kisses him softly until he sighs into her mouth. The moth turns to ash. She breaks away, then stares into his eyes. “Better be a big-ass distraction, then,” she mutters.

“It’s the truth, Izzy. It’s the biggest one we got.”

  
  


**Cell Bay**

**THE LIGHTHOUSE, S.H.I.E.L.D. HEADQUARTERS**

**LOCATION: CLASSIFIED**

“Suspect’s poker face rivals your own, May,” Phil says as she shuts the door to the observation room. His words are mild, but there’s no humor in his voice as he stares through the one-way mirror at the man they’d picked up from an NYC hangar this morning.

“He is not responding to any of my interrogation techniques,” Agent Melinda May shrugs. “Unless you want me to try some extreme measures, I don’t see what else we can do.”

“Has he _asked_ for anything? Any food? Tech? Information?”

“Coconut water.”

He blinks at her reflection, but nothing in her expression suggests that she’s joking. “ _Why?_ ”

“Says he likes the taste.”

His eyes once again land on the blank-faced bald man sitting almost painfully erect on the uncomfortable bolted-down chairs in the interrogation room. He hadn’t blinked when they’d broken into the hangar and shoved a bag over his head - as though he’d been expecting them.

“What do you want to do, Coulson?” May asks softly.

Phil knows exactly the kind of man Ross is. He knows what he would do to someone like Enoch Coltrane, and he’s exhausted all of the Secretary’s minimal goodwill towards S.H.I.E.L.D. just keeping him at bay until May finished her interrogation. Not that that had yielded anything. The prisoner seems intent on getting on their nerves.

He nods to May. “Call them in.” May’s mouth twists in disgusted displeasure, but she acquiesces and heads towards the door.

It bursts open before she’s even reached out for the handle, and a young agent stumbles in, his eyes wide, brow lined with sweat.

“What is it?”

“Our cameras in the town have picked up on something, Director. And you’re not going to like it.”

  
  


**July 15th, 2024**

**THE LIGHTHOUSE, S.H.I.E.L.D. HEADQUARTERS**

**LOCATION: CLASSIFIED**

The pilot had dropped her off in a clearing in the woods a little ways away from the charming little town of River’s End. She hikes back and almost immediately finds herself surrounded by heavily armed men. Again.

She can guess who they answer to.

“I wouldn’t do that if you don’t want frostbitten fingers,” she mutters when the man in charge moves to grab her arm.

“Secretary Ross wants to have a word,” he says through gritted teeth.

“I’ll come with,” she says coolly, “ - and unless I’m being arrested - of my _own free will_.”

He nods reluctantly, loathing barely restrained in his eyes, and gestures to the others. They surround her, keeping close, their fingers lingering on their weapons.

A blurry memory whispers at the back of her mind. When she’d been about five, before Terrigenesis or S.H.I.E.L.D - before _everything_ , really - she had overheard a conversation between Howard and Peggy Carter about something called _Reclamation_. He’d been excitedly telling her how he had ensured tickets for himself and Tony to the _Lighthouse_ should the worst come to pass and the world sinks around them.

Carter, then, had, in a deceptively controlled voice, inquired about the fate of his wife and daughter in such a scenario and had been answered with a deafening silence.

But her father’s disregard for her life is not why Isabelle remembers that moment.

It’s memorable only because of the immense relief she had felt at the indirect reassurance that, no matter what, _Tony_ would always be safe.

Even then, she had known Howard would never let any harm come to his ‘greatest creation’ as long as he continued to breathe.

**_As long as he was alive._ **

She’s never wished for her father more than at this moment. Because if Howard were alive, _Tony_ would be alive… and he wouldn’t have let this happen to Parker in the first place.

Isabelle should’ve kept an eye on him. But if anyone reminded her of Tony more than his daughter, it was his protégé. Happy and Pepper were the only contacts between the Parkers and the Starks, and she’d let that status quo lie.

It isn’t long before she’s in the familiar monitoring station of the Lighthouse, which is busier than she’s ever seen. Screens cover every inch of the far wall, and beeps and alarms from various systems are punctuated by agents whisper-shouting into their headsets and typing hurriedly onto their holographic keyboards. Agent May spares her a single glance, before turning back to the screens.

Coulson doesn’t react at her appearance except for the slight tightening of his eyes. Ross, however, turns purple.

His apoplectic expression sends a frisson of satisfaction down her spine, even though it means she’s his prime target.

“Where is he?!” He demands, stalking over to her.

“It’s what I’m here to find out,” she says, slipping past him, and looks over at the screens, her eyes lingering on the footage of Times Square.

As she watches, Spider-Man, perched on a streetlight in Madison Square Garden, is bombarded with catcalls, jeers, and the rapid clicks of smartphone cameras. Even in the footage, it’s apparent that his posture is stiff, distressed. After a few seconds, he swings out of sight and doesn’t reappear.

“If I find out that you or Potts or even _Rhodes_ is behind Parker’s disappearance, the Raft will look like Disneyworld compared to where I’ll throw you.”

“You’re looking for the wrong guy, Thaddeus,” she says, tossing out his first name casually, knowing it’ll rile him up.

“Peter Parker ordered a strike on innocent civilians using _Stark_ drones and killed an interdimensional soldier, and then disappeared when he was exposed!” he bellows. “There isn’t even a word for his _unbelievably_ reprehensible crimes, and you still maintain his innocence?”

Coulson steps in between them, his hands raised. “We are straying from the matter at hand,” he tells Ross in a measured tone. “Secretary Ross, you’ve already sent your soldiers to interrogate all of Mr. Parker’s friends and family members. And we’re continuing to interrogate our main suspect in this case.”

Isabelle’s phone pings. _Sent you whatever I had,_ Pepper’s text reads. _They’ll buy you some time._

If Ross wants prey, she’s more than happy to hand him some.

She opens her phone, downloads the files, then with a flick of her wrist, she forwards it to the screens of the monitoring station. The footage disappears, replaced by proof incriminating one Quentin Beck. She doesn’t need to look at them to know that Pepper and Rhodey would’ve done a thorough job.

The monitoring station is stunned to silence.

She turns to Ross. “Beck wasn’t an interdimensional _anything_ ,” she says coldly. “He was a disgruntled former Stark Industries employee, intent on possessing advanced holographic technology my brother bequeathed to Peter Parker. Mrs. Potts-Stark has gathered employee records, eyewitness testimonials, footage, _psychological evaluations_ \- evidence, for your perusal, _Mr. Secretary_.”

“B.A.R.F.?” Coulson whispers, eyes fixed on the screen. She nods.

“He had tech of his own to instigate the attacks in Prague, Venice, and Mexico. But we think he used B.A.R.F. to create that big-ass monster you saw in London, and probably used it to frame Parker for all the crimes you’re so intent on pinning on him.”

Ross’ brows knot as he scrolls down the data on the screen. “This proves _nothing_. Those elementals created water damage, explosions - how do you explain that?” he asks finally, scowling at her. She doesn’t react - it’s not as if she was expecting a positive reaction. “He was from another Earth, he could’ve been _our_ Earth’s counterpart for all we know.”

She makes sure to give him a look so full of pity he bristles. “You believe that crap he spun about _parallel Earths_? C’mon, Ross - you’re a man of reason; use your goddamn _brain_. Sure, this isn’t proof, but it’s enough for you to start investigating a little deeper instead of wasting your time trying to hunt down a _seventeen-year-old_.”

Beck had run his story on the assumption that the world had gotten so weird that people would be willing to believe anything, and he had been right. It’s surprising that Ross hadn’t found a way to blame _her_ for the water elemental in Italy.

She’s one of the few who knows that alternate universes and parallel timelines are all too real. But Ross didn’t need to know that, and if she has her way - he never will.

He glares at her, but before he can find anything to refute her words, there’s a muffled bang from somewhere in the lower levels and the Lighthouse plunges into darkness.

For a moment, there’s absolute silence, the kind of silence she’s never heard descend upon this base before. Suddenly, everyone’s breathing seems unusually harsh, and it gives her an inkling of what this might be, but she’s all too aware of Ross’ presence and pretends ignorance. “What is this?”

“Power’s down,” Coulson’s voice emerges, followed by faint tapping. “Can’t access my tablet either. This isn’t an ordinary outage.”

“ _EMP_ ,” Ross growls, and there’s an unmistakable sound of a safety being switched off. “We’re being attacked!”

“I wouldn’t go so far as that,” May says quietly, which is when the lights return, all at once.

Isabelle blinks the bright spots out of her eyes. She doesn’t have to wait too long. Her heart skips a beat when May’s muffled oath reaches her ears.

“Coulson,” the woman says. Isabelle follows her gaze to the screens, to the digital numbers displayed on the taskbar. “ _We just lost an hour._ ”

“Bring me footage of the Cell Bay,” the Director snaps. Isabelle doesn’t need to check the videos that spring up to interpret his indrawn breath, but she does so anyway.

The interrogation room is empty.

The room whirs into action. Ross barks orders into his comms, agents, and army grunts rushing around him. Coulson and May pore through every surveillance video on every level and their faces turn grimmer when each one comes up with nothing.

She hasn’t been given any orders, so she stays out of the way, making sure to keep her body relaxed. Coulson’s stare still burns a hole in the back of her head, though.

It’s not long before they finally accept what she’s known before even the lights returned - Enoch Coltrane is long gone.

“Was this your plan?” Ross demands, stalking towards her until she has to look up to meet his eyes. “You distract us while our main suspect slips away? I knew you had to be working with Parker, I _knew…_!”

“What suspect?” she asks, threading her voice with the right amount of indignant confusion. “I came here to give _you_ the only lead _I_ have as a gesture of good faith - something I’m starting to regret!”

He glares, but she doesn’t back down. There’s a vein throbbing in the Secretary’s forehead when he whirls towards Coulson. “I’m going after Coltrane. My men will be posted at every exit. _Your_ job is to keep looking for Parker,” he orders grimly, “ - and the minute you find him, you tell me, not _her_ ,” and he points to Isabelle.

“And when I find Parker,” his voice pitches until only she can hear him, “ - I’m gonna bury him _alive_ and _take_ what Stark left him.”

Her eyes flash a brilliant aquamarine.

Ross gives her a look of pure loathing before stalking off, his men falling behind him.

The Director turns to her. “You were supposed to be on vacation,” he says, displeasure thick in his voice.

“And Spider-Man’s identity was supposed to be a secret. Guess nobody is getting what they want these days,” Isabelle retorts.

He sighs, gives her a look. “We can talk in my office, Agent Collins,” Coulson says as he turns around and heads towards the door on the far side of the monitoring station.

After a momentary hesitation, she falls in behind him.

* * *

The office is more cramped than most of the Director’s offices Phil’s occupied, but then, this bunker had been created to survive _extinction-level_ events. ‘Compact’ was more of a priority than ‘cozy’ when the threat of the Hydrogen Wave Crisis had still loomed large over the world.

Collins makes a show of looking around. Her face tightens when her gaze lands on the miniature model of Lola and Phil remembers with a wince that the red Corvette had been modified based on designs and technologies developed by Howard Stark.

“It’s a lot barer than I’d have expected,” she mutters. “Where are your toys?”

“Most of my _memorabilia_ got blown up along with the Playground,” he says shortly, slipping behind his desk. “Didn’t feel like decorating during the Decimation.” Reminding himself that they don’t do small talk anymore, he pulls up the footage of the empty cell on a tablet. “You seem remarkably incurious about this,” he says, turning the tablet towards her. “Tell me this wasn’t you.”

“It wasn’t me,” she replies, and Phil’s inclined to believe her. Her eyes linger in the shadowed corners of the room. “This room clear?”

His face tightens, but he nods. “S.H.I.E.L.D. 's learned to counter external bugs after repeated attempts to hack our mainframe. Secretary Ross is going to find an unpleasant surprise waiting for him when he tries to access confidential information from our servers.”

“Is that why I don’t see Johnson here? Risky move, keeping her backstage - Ross isn’t known for sticking to due process.”

Phil shrugs. “Riskier to have her in his line of sight, especially after what happened with Talbot. It’s safer to have her running QB interference when he’s on-site.”

He nods at all the screens outside exposing Beck’s guilt. “I know when I’m being sidetracked, Agent Collins. You wouldn’t have given us this if you didn’t want something from S.H.I.E.L.D.”

He could’ve always reprimanded her for hiding Beck from S.H.I.E.L.D. for this long, but he knows that Ross’ men have been dogging Pepper’s and Happy’s every move, and the only reason they hadn’t found _Collins_ was that she didn’t _want_ to be found.

Until now.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y. caught wind of a mysterious event on the Poveglia Island in Venice. I need you to send me in - _alone_ \- to investigate it.”

Phil blinks. It’s not what he’d been expecting. “We’re classifying it as an 0-8-4 phenomena, but it’s low priority. One of my agents is monitoring the situation. Why?”

She says nothing, but he has learned to read between the lines of her silence. “It’s an excuse,” he speculates, “ - because you’re going to use the mission as an excuse to find something to incriminate Beck, or prove Parker innocent. _Bit_ of an ask. Venice is a big city for one agent alone.”

“If anyone can do it, it’s me.”

Phil isn’t naive enough to think that this is all there is. She has something, probably many things, that she won’t, _can’t_ share with him. He nods in acknowledgment, and she breathes a sigh of relief.

“Izzy,” he says quietly, and her lips thin for a second at the unwelcome form of address. He barrels on anyway. “I’m not going to stop you from doing what you have to do. But if you’re right, and Peter Parker _is_ innocent, then I’ll do everything in my power to stonewall the government.”

She stills. “You want me to bring him into S.H.I.E.L.D. if I find him.”

“We have safe houses where we can keep him until Pepper can prove his innocence,” he nods. “No one will find him, and you can stay to keep an eye on him if you want, but I wouldn’t advise that because -,”

“ - there are eyes on me,” she finishes, looking supremely unconcerned by the fact. It troubles him that she’s not taking Ross’ threats seriously enough, but perhaps she knows enough to maintain wary confidence. He hopes that’s true.

She inhales deeply, then meets his eyes. “If I bring him in, I’ll need something from you.”

Her request isn’t what he was expecting, and he’ll have to do some digging, but it’s nothing that can’t be done. “Deal,” he says.

A moment of silent understanding passes between them, and for the first time since he’d laid eyes on Isabelle Collins amongst the ruins of the Statue of Liberty, he feels at ease in her presence. She shifts, and he reads the unspoken cue.

He brings up the schematics of the base on the tablet. “Ross wasn’t kidding when he said the Lighthouse would be watched. But there are underground tunnels that lead out of this place,” he says quietly, pinning her with an intense look. “The Secretary has posted men in all of them, but there are some that they just can’t observe because they all have _flooded_.”

Collins draws in a sharp breath. “They open into the Lake.”

“Lead the way.”

* * *

Even with her eyes closed, Isabelle can feel the water on the other side of the force-field. It is barely contained.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she says, without turning around, her fingers hovering over the screen that would bring down the field. “When this thing blows, it’s not gonna be pretty.”

“I just…” Daisy Johnson's scrunched-up face clears when she turns around. “I wanted to apologize.”

“Didn’t find a better time and place to do it?” Her words are cutting.

She runs a hand through her hair. “I... it wasn't right of me - to force you into a position where you had to agree to Gabe’s spell.” Her apology sounds reluctant, as though it’s coming from her mouth, but someone else’s words are being forced out.

Isabelle closes her eyes, realizing that there’s genuinely no fixing this. Johnson’s the face of the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D. - none of them trust her; only _she’s_ just unbelievably vocal about it. “It was necessary,” she offers her a way out, knowing that Johnson wouldn’t take it.

“Yeah, but...”

Isabelle realizes that _she_ doesn’t want to fix it.

“Listen, Johnson,” she interrupts sharply. “I don't want your half-assed apologies. As far as I'm concerned, pragmatism always rules, and you did an excellent job demonstrating it.”

**_Hook._ **

Her gaze turns hard. “Just remember, someday - I might choose to return the favor.” She wets her lips. “And you know what... I think I am looking forward to it.”

**_Line._ **

Isabelle watches with satisfaction tinged with distant resignation when Johnson’s lip curls. “Coulson's just fooling himself about you, isn't he?” the other woman asks bitterly. “You're exactly what S.H.I.E.L.D. described you to be. A cold, _sociopathic bitch_. You don’t care about Parker, you only care about the billion-dollar tech he’s carrying. You don’t even care that your brother _died_ to bring _you_ back, do you?”

**_And now for the sinker._ **

She can almost see the bile rising Johnson’s throat when she plasters on the cruelest smile she can muster and says words that burn like blasphemy on her tongue.

“ _He got the job done._ ”

Johnson recoils, stares at her with flat eyes, then spins on her heels and disappears down the tunnel.

Isabelle exhales only when she hears the distant sound of an elevator riding up. Her body gives itself away to the water that feels more like her true form these days.

With one swift motion, she twists around and slams a hand on the screen.

  
  


**July 23rd, 2024**

**LOCATION: Gran Viale Santa Maria Elisabetta**

**Lido di Venezia**

She had forgotten how quiet it could get here at night, even during tourist season. The beach, which had been bustling just a few hours ago, is silent now, with only a few stragglers hurrying home.

She lets her toes sink one last time into the seashell-strewn sands before making her way to the bar at the end of the street. It’s a lot more crowded than she expects, but that’s good - she hasn’t taken off her photostatic veils since she landed in Venice, but she still doesn’t want her disguise to be in any way memorable.

There's a part of her that’s glad she’s here. She can _breathe_ in this city, in _Venezia Serenissima_. There are no constant reminders here, of her losses, of her _failures_. She can pretend that she’s not Isabelle Collins, or Isabelle Stark, or even Isabelle Rhodes…

Just Izzy.

Venice is, and always has been, _hers_.

Isabelle snags a seat, catches the attention of the bartender and orders a beer.

She’d spent the entirety of last week canvassing the town of Chioggia. The residents hadn’t been forthcoming on details, but she hadn’t expected otherwise; Pellestrina is known for closing ranks against strangers, even those who look Venetian. So she’d spent her time eavesdropping, recording voices, and ‘borrowing’ DNA from a few locals to create new veils.

Her gut tells her that Lido is where she’ll find whatever she’s looking for.

Or perhaps it’s just the mysterious call that her home, her birthplace has always had for her that has brought her here, and she’s letting sentimentality drive her mission.

Isabelle suspects it might be both.

The hatted bartender doesn’t spare her a second glance before sliding a cold, frothy mug across the bar table. She fights down the urge to grimace and takes a slow sip. She’s never taken to alcohol - dehydration is a very real risk for her - but appearances, unfortunately, must be kept.

Her eyes rove over the tourists and the locals alike who’d flooded the beaches this afternoon, armed with parasols, beach towels, and plastic chairs. Anyone could be her target - she does not doubt that if _she_ has S.H.I.E.L.D.- issued photostatic veils to disguise her face and voice, Riva and his cronies will have something a lot more sophisticated.

It’s not until the power goes out does she realize that she’s been waiting for something to happen.

The silence that falls on the crowd breaks with a gasp, and then everyone is hurriedly paying for their drinks and clogging the entrance in their desperation to escape. She stays seated, sips at her beer, swaying as she’s shoved by the rabble. The bartender utters a muffled oath, a stained towel forgotten in his hands as his eyes are arrested by something in the distance.

She follows his gaze, down the sandy beach, beyond the moonlit waves to the silhouette of Poveglia on the horizon.

As she watches, a thick, dark green fog emerges out of the waters surrounding the island and crawls up the western shores to relentlessly envelop the ruins in its unnatural embrace. Even the famed bell tower overshadowing the other buildings doesn’t escape the murk.

0-8-4, Coulson had said. The official S.H.I.E.L.D. designation for an ‘object of unknown origin’. Or, in this case, a _phenomenon_.

Poveglia has always been shrouded in mystery and superstition, but she knows for a fact that it’s no more haunted than the Mansion. She has snuck off on a gondola enough times in her youth and walked around the ruins of the asylum and the plague pits to personally attest to it.

And yet.

She looks around. The bar is empty except for the owner, wiping down all the glasses with a despondent expression, and a young man in a hoodie occupying the farthest seat.

Her eyes linger on the other patron, who’s nursing something that doesn’t look alcoholic. His posture is far too stiff, and his eyes keep snapping to the view of the island outside.

She blinks twice. Deliberately.

S.H.I.E.L.D. tech had gone through quite a few upgrades during her involuntary retirement period. The veils are now retrofitted with a specialized contact lens that projects a user interface to scan visual targets.

A facial scan diagnostic appears and F.R.I.D.A.Y. zooms in on the teenager, brings up a photo. The young man is strangely pale for the Italian summer, but his face doesn’t match the one she’s looking for.

She exhales quietly.

“ _We thought at first that it was divine retribution_ ,” the bartender suddenly says, stopping in the middle of his customary wipe-down. His Italian is choppy and coarse, reminiscent of the beaches he spends most of his day in. “ _They came from Sicily, said that they were sent by the Mayor to ‘restore’ Poveglia - make it into hotels with pools, parks. To wipe out our history, our culture.”_

She arches an eyebrow. Their roles seem to have switched. For the first time, a _bartender_ is the one sharing his woes.

_“Real estate brokers_ ,” Isabelle murmurs, keeping an eye on the other patron. “ _They were the first victims?”_

He nods. “ _They went, which is when the fog started. Only one returned, a week later, and I fished him out of the water. Whatever he saw drove him mad. The Polizia - they sent men, loyal Venetians, who disappeared as well._ ” He sighs heavily, looking increasingly unnerved. " _First, that water monster attacks the Grand Canal, and now this. The survivor said Venice was cursed. Maybe he was right.”_

She straightens in her seat. Now, this is interesting. _“Where is the survivor now?”_

The bartender shrugs. “ _They took him to the hospital in town. The doctors - they don’t know what’s wrong with him, so they’re going to send him back to Sicily tomorrow._ ”

She nods and lets her eyes slip to the side, only to find the corner seat empty. She bites back a curse, rises, and slides a few extra euros across the bar and walks out without a backward glance.

He’s not at the beach. He’s not in the boathouse, nor lurking the alleys in and around Santa Maria Elisabetta.

No one should’ve been able to disappear so fast - not unless they were enhanced.

“FRI?” She whispers.

“ _The dearth of public surveillance measures in Lido is making it difficult for me to see much_ ,” the AI tells her crossly.

The thought that she has missed out on something huge isn’t letting her go. “Execute an anatomical comparison analysis on the suspect.”

“ _Skipper, I don’t think…”_

“Just do it.”

A few seconds pass, before F.R.I.D.A.Y. quietly admits, “ _\- 63% match between the patron and Peter Parker, based on the limited information I could gather._ ”

“I’ve worked with fewer odds. Expand your search grid, hack into any telecoms you got access to. I need eyes, ears, anything you can get me.”

“ _Would you like me to ping E.D.I.T.H. again? Or Karen?”_

“Might as well. I don’t expect anything to come of it, though.”

“ _Maybe one of these days we’ll get lucky._ ”

The throng has thinned out now, most answering the call of dinner time. But there are enough tourists taking selfies to be useful for F.R.I.D.A.Y. She walks along canals parallel to the main street, eyes lingering on each face, her veil providing yet another layer of investigation.

She’s just ducked into a narrow, quieter alley at the other end of the street when F.R.I.D.A.Y. crackles to life in her ear. “ _I think I got something_ ,” she says, quietly bringing up an Instagram post of a blurred figure crouching on one of the nearby rooftops.

Her neck prickles as something lands behind her lightly. She stills.

“Why are you following me?”

The voice is unfamiliar, and the British accent is almost impressively genuine. She starts to turn around, but a lithe yet muscular arm clamps down on her shoulder. “Do _not_ turn around.”

Her eyebrow twitches, and she twists, swings her arm sharply, drops her body weight, and disengages. He retreats and blinks, startled. “Hasn’t anyone ever taught you not to grab a woman?” she snarls, before breaking into a roundhouse kick.

His arm blocks her, and she ducks under his other fist, aimed at her head, retaliating with a sharp elbow jab to the underside of his ribs. He grunts harshly but recovers swiftly with another punch, but she blocks him and strikes his solar plexus.

His eyes bulge as the breath is driven from his lungs, and she brings his arm around and twists sharply, presses him down. “Ready to give up yet?”

He gasps in pain, then chuckles darkly. “Not likely,” he says, fake accent all but forgotten. In a swift move, he shifts his hips backward, breaking her hold, pivots, his right leg hooking behind hers, and jerking sharply. She lands with a thud, and he breaks off, retreating, arms coming up.

She pulls herself up with a smooth motion. He throws the first punch this time, but once again, she blocks, turns and locks his arm around her neck, grabs his hoodie, and uses the momentum to roll forward.

They land hard, but he recovers almost as fast as her, his flat hands coming up to block her kick, and he grabs her calves, twists hard, and they roll on the ground, legs tangled for a brief moment before jerking up again. Her foot glances off his chin and he reverses rolls and pulls himself to his feet just as she aims yet another, more powerful roundhouse kick this time.

Neither of them expected it to connect. His face looks almost comically startled as he goes crashing into a dumpster.

“Yeah, you’re done,” she says, raising an arm slowly.

He curls his body inward then leaps forward, landing in a familiar crouch in front of her, his eyes narrowed to slits. Then stills.

Thick mist wafts down her fingers, whose tips are coated in ice. With her other hand, she slowly pulls off her veil and drops it. His eyes widen with recognition. “You, Peter Parker, are a royal pain in my ass.”

Slowly, he reaches out and pulls off his mask, given to him by Enoch. Parker blinks up at her, slack-jawed.

“ _Aquamarine_?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **MCU Context:**
> 
> **Stark Mansion:** In the comics, Stark Mansion eventually became Avengers Mansion. But in the MCU, it''s only ever shown in an unfortunately short-lived tv show called Agent Carter, set in the 1950s, immediately after World War II. None of the movies even hinted towards it. Stark-owned locations were just the Malibu house, the Avengers Tower, and finally the Compound.
> 
> I'm using it cuz why waste such a brilliant location.
> 
> **J.O.C.A.S.T.A.:** In the Age of ULTRON, when Tony's trying to find the best one to replace J.A.R.V.I.S. in his suits, he goes through a bunch of A.I. chips, before finally choosing F.R.I.D.A.Y. But there were two other visible chips, J.O.C.A.S.T.A. and T.A.D.A.S.H.I., that I mentioned earlier in my prologue.
> 
> In the comics, J.O.C.A.S.T.A. was created to be the 'bride of ULTRON'.
> 
> In my fic's canon, there is a different connection between J.O.C.A.S.T.A. and ULTRON. And T.A.D.A.S.H.I. will play a role as well, much much later.
> 
> **May Parker's sobriety:** This is my own personal canon. I have loved all of the women who have played May Parkers over the years, but all of them seemed a little too perfect. Great, awesome support systems/parent figures to the various Peter Parkers, but without any flaws at all.
> 
> So this struck me like a bolt of inspiration from nowhere, really, when I thought - wow, maybe Ben Parker's death hit a lot harder than shown in the movies, and this May turned to drink and only came out of it when she saw how awesomely independent and responsible her (then) fourteen-year-old was behaving. So she attended rehab sessions, got clean, supported her nephew… then got Snapped by a purple alien.


	10. Far Known to Sea and Shore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The haunting in Poveglia provides some answers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much thanks to ElessarII for reviewing this chapter. If there was ever someone I would take to a haunted island, it'd be you. Even though you'd probably hate it.
> 
> Please review to let me know how you like it!
> 
> **Warning: Some graphic horror descriptions in this chapter. Stay safe, friends.**
> 
> ** MCU Context **
> 
> **Peter Parker: Dark Side**
> 
> In all of the movies and the comics featuring Spider-Man, one thing remains common; Peter Parker is unequivocally a pretty light and easy-going guy, as is his alter-ego. _‘Friendly neighborhood Spider-Man’_ and all that.
> 
> In my fic, he’s going to be different. Mass Effect, as a universe, is dark. In some cases, much darker than MCU, especially with the lighter tones the recent movies (Captain Marvel, Far From Home) seem to be heading towards. This isn’t gonna be a happy fic, especially not for Peter Parker.
> 
> I’m not going to make him broody or evil. But he will be a product of his environment, his experiences. We all saw the first hint of this in the Far From Home trailer when Peter was devastated by the death of his mentor. I am going to be exploring the very real consequences of the post-credits scene in the movie, now and later. It’s not going to be a very in-depth exploration, I don’t think, but there will be hints of it scattered in this fic, enough to make him and his choices sound rather OOC at times.

_Far known to sea and shore,_

_Four square and founded well,_

_A thousand years it bore,_

_And then the belfry fell._

\- Far Known to Sea and Shore, A. E. Housman

###  **July 23rd, 2024**

**LOCATION: Gran Viale Santa Maria Elisabetta**

**Lido di Venezia**

He wants to leave for the island immediately.

Isabelle Collins shakes her head. “The harbor is closed for the night, or at least until the fog around Poveglia lifts. No gondolier worth his license is going to row us there, and even if I could manage to bribe us a boat - the coast guard will be monitoring the Lagoon.”

“I went through E.D.I.T.H.’s usage history - I saw them, Riva and Snow and the rest of them,” he mutters, his fists clenching. “They’re _right_ there, ten _minutes_ away and you want to _wait_?”

She eyes him for a long moment. “Still have a few rage issues you need to get off your chest, Parker?”

Peter snarls wordlessly, then moves to brush past her, but she shifts slightly, blocking his path. He resists the urge to break something, and she seems to recognize it, her eyes turning watchful.

“In the condition you’re in, it won’t be very hard for me to stop you,” she says quietly. “Imagine what Riva and his army of drones will do to you.”

He glares at her. “Are you here to arrest me, _Agent_ _Collins_?”

She arches her eyebrow. “Happy’s a little too fond of telling tales, I see.” Then her eyes narrow sharply and she inclines her head. “Wait, no. It was _Fury_ , wasn’t it, who told you I rejoined S.H.I.E.L.D.?”

“ _Why_ are you here?”

She sighs. “Wanted to keep an eye on my brother’s investment,” she admits quietly.

 _Oh_.

Oh, _of course_ , because he cannot think of a _single_ reason why Isabelle Collins of all people would be here, in Venice, because she’s never once shown any kind of interest in him when he’d been mentoring under…

Under…

She’s not here for _him_.

“Right,” he says bitterly. “ _E.D.I.T.H._ Makes sense…,” he swallows, looks away, “ - you can take her after I’ve found the proof I need.”

It's the very least that he deserves, after the monumental fuckups he’s managed to make with the technology, and with his life.

When he looks back, her face is wiped clean of all emotion, and for a second, it makes him think that he’s pegged her wrong, but then she nods. “There’s something else,” she says and tells him about the lone survivor of the real estate crew that had gone missing more than a week ago. E.D.I.T.H. had translated part of the conversation he’d heard eavesdropping on the bartender’s conversation with her, but she provides him with more details on what F.R.I.D.A.Y. found.

It’s a very thin lead, but it might lead to something.

“It’s a _psychiatric ward_ ,” he argues, shaking his head. “We’re not going to be able to just _walk_ in.”

“You’re not,” she agrees, withdrawing a new mask and slipping it on.

“But _I can_.”

  
  


###  **LOCATION: Santa Maria Elisabetta Hospital**

It had been laughably easy to demand a visitation for the survivor, one Vittorio Silvani, once F.R.I.D.A.Y. had manufactured some evidence confirming a distant relationship between him and Isabelle’s chosen veil.

She has less than fifteen minutes before visitation times are done for the day, so she hurries through the plain-walled corridors and stops in front of a double-door. She waits until the hallway is clear before opening the fire doors and standing aside to let Parker sneak in.

Her eyes flick towards the surveillance cameras, and F.R.I.D.A.Y. hums in response - the AI has already hacked into the hospital’s abysmal security system, so they’re in the clear; up until the receptionist decides to dig deeper and discovers that the disguise doesn’t hold up to even the first layer of scrutiny.

“I thought I told you to get an orderly’s uniform,” she says, eyeing his stolen attire as he balances a tray of empty plastic medication cups on one hand while tying his laces with another.

He straightens and meets her eyes.

It feels like being gutted.

He’d mentioned E.D.I.T.H., and she has known that ever since she’d heard Tony’s will, but she hadn’t _remembered_ until now. Or perhaps she hadn’t let herself think of it.

Of the sight of those familiar, blue-tinted glasses - because the last time she’d seen those, the last time…

Her lungs feel tight, too tight, and her fingers are numb. She swallows past the dryness in her throat futilely. Darkness is encroaching in the corners of her vision, **_oh no no not now!_ **

“... so I thought it’d be more prudent to knock out a security guard and borrow his uniform,” Parker is saying.

His words spark a bolt of concern through her, which helps shove away the memories of ash and blood. “Better hope it was a hard hit, then,” she says, thankful that her voice sounds a lot less strangled than she feels.

He shrugs. “Didn’t punch him. Just cut off his air supply until he lost consciousness.” He sounds utterly nonchalant about this, as though taking the route of violence has always been his first resort. Unease coils in her belly, and it mixes sourly with her residual panic.

She shoves her trembling fingers into her pocket and falls in behind him. A few doctors pass by without giving them a second glance, for which she is glad because gathering her scattered thoughts is taking all of her concentration.

Isabelle had mistakenly believed her home, her birthplace would be the one location to remain unaffected by her demons. But now, now… Venice, _serene Venice,_ is forever marred with the invisible weight of that deceptively-innocuous pair of glasses.

“Here we are,” Parker says quietly and pushes open the door to patient room no. 34.

The most colorful thing in the room is the patient himself, sitting still and quiet in a wheelchair. Everything else is almost horrifyingly plain - the plastic mattress covered neatly by white sheets, the desks, and the set of drawers, even the heavy curtains pulled across secured windows.

She makes sure the door is open just a tiny bit and looks over the survivor.

Vittorio Silvani is blond and blue-eyed and looks nothing like what she would expect of a real estate agent. He doesn’t respond, doesn’t even look up when they approach him, just keeps staring out of the window. She isn’t surprised by it - the receptionist had warned her that whatever Silvani had seen in the fog had shut him down completely.

“Well, he’s not going to be of any use,” Parker mutters. She shoots him another glance and then goes to kneel in front of the patient.

His eyes don’t track her fingers. “Oh, I don’t know. I think Mr. Silvani still might be able to tell us _something_. Pass E.D.I.T.H. to me, will you?”

“What?”

She looks up at him, points to the glasses. The…loss of control in the corridor, while unfortunate, had given her an idea. “Time’s a-wastin’. I think she can help.”

He hesitates, but hands them over, then blinks when she slides them onto Silvani’s nose. “What are you doing?”

“E.D.I.T.H., record and archive memories of the 11th of July.”

“ _Voice authentication confirmed: Stark, Isabelle Morgana. Activating B.A.R.F. protocol - accessing the subject's hippocampus. Please stand by.”_ The lens glows blue.

“B.A.R.F., like Mr. Stark… Tony’s 2016 MIT speech? Binarily Augmented Retro-Framing… he never did get around to fixing that acronym, did he?”

It’s easier to dissociate when the glasses are on a stranger’s face. “You never used it?”

“I… only got them recently and I’ve used them for, well…”

“ _Avenging_ ,” she finishes for him. “It’s not all they’re good for.”

“How do they work for you? I thought only I had access to all the functions.”

“You do,” she agrees, “ - when it comes to the defense systems like drones, satellites, and all the comm systems she can hack into. But this…,” she points to E.D.I.T.H. scanning the survivor’s memories, “ - is for therapeutic pursuits. It can’t be weaponized. Tony made sure of that.”

“ _Memory recorded and archived. Would you like me to project?”_

Parker’s ears prick, and he half-turns towards the door. She eyes his arm - all the hairs are standing on end. “Damn it - we’ve been made.”

“Did they discover the unconscious guard?”

He shoots her annoyed look, which she ignores. She can fear footsteps in the distance. “Belay that,” she tells E.D.I.T.H., sliding the glasses off the man’s nose. She hesitates, then places a hand on the blond patient’s shoulder. Words escape her, so she just squeezes lightly, sighing when he remains unresponsive.

They duck out of the room, stride down the corridor, and exit the corner just as the doctors and orderlies enter from the other end.

“We need to get off the streets,” Parker says as they hurriedly make their way down the fire stairs and burst out into the night. Alarms are ringing in the hospital already, and he glances back one last time. “Find somewhere secure where we can watch the recording.”

She exhales deeply. “I think I know a place.”

  
  


###  **LOCATION:** **Palazzo di Carbonell**

**Lido di Venezia**

The Palazzo has always seemed to her to be frozen in time, stuck in the age it was created in, filled with echoes of memories she could do well without. But it had been the first safe space she could think of in Venice, and she had known when she’d broken out of the hospital that it was time to stop avoiding portions of her past.

A part of her had been expecting the villa to be in a state of disrepair after having been uninhabited for decades, but when she finally emerges from the cellars, she’s not surprised to see the interior fresh and clean, as though it’d been just yesterday she’d left this home and made New York City her permanent place of residence.

The upkeep and maintenance of the Palazzo are still paid for by Stark Industries, and as such, it’s a perfect spot for them to hide.

Parker pauses in front of a painting in the living room. “ _Maria Carbonell_ ,” he reads from the nameplate. “You look like her.”

It might be personal bias, but every time Isabelle has laid eyes on this portrait, her mother always seemed to be glowing. Maria’s eyes sparkle as her fingers run over the keys of the grand piano that still stands in the parlor, untouched since the day she died. “She was a lot more beautiful.”

The weight of the silence that follows settles in her bones. Isabelle lets the distant echo of her mother’s choked sobs as she breathes her last play out in her mind.

“I always thought her last name was Collins,” he says softly. “That’s why you… well, you took up that name when you joined S.H.I.E.L.D., right? Because Stark was a name too heavy, and people could take advantage of your family connections to hurt you.”

It’s the first time since she stumbled upon him a few hours ago that he doesn’t sound… _angry_ , so she lets the familiar agony wash over her as she thinks back to a time before she’d lost everything.

It’s easier to remember her mother as a half-French, half-Italian beauty, unburdened and unbroken by the weight of the name ‘Stark’. “Her parents anglicized her name so she would have an easier time finding a husband in the States.”

She turns away. “C’mon, we got work to do.”

The ballroom is smaller than she remembers - the space had been positively cavernous in her childhood, with its huge _arte nouva_ chandeliers, tall, heavy curtains, and intricate frescoes adorning the walls.

They move to the center of the room, and she nods at Parker, who shoves on the E.D.I.T.H. glasses. “On the way here, I programmed her to show us only the highlights of whatever Silvani saw that drove him nuts. No time like the present, right?” He barely gives her a warning before activating the B.A.R.F. recording.

The ballroom disappears, replaced by broken, crumbling ruins of a corridor whose existence she had long forgotten.

 _Midday sunlight streams through the broken window panes. The derelict building is heavily overgrown with vegetation, worn with weather and time. Cobwebs sway in the wind, framing the word_ _‘Reparto Psychiatria’_ _graffitied on the walls._

 _A group of individuals is standing at the other end of the hallway._ She recognizes Silvani among them. _They’re laughing and joking amongst each other, completely at ease, unaware that they’re little more than memories._

That’s when she hears it.

_The moaning._

_It reverberates through the walls, as though emerging from the very building itself. The trees seem to sway in response to it, the leaves rustling uneasily as the moan gains in volume, followed by muffled, distant cries and sounds of wet, hacking coughs that send chills down her spine._

_“What was that?” Silvani asks._ His lips don’t sync with the words being spoken - the crew is speaking Italian. E.D.I.T.H. must be translating for Parker’s benefit.

_The other members of the crew look at each other and shrug uneasily. “Probably just the trees.”_

The memory flickers into holographic limbo, which then resolves itself into another one.

_They’re at the shores of the island, where the same group of men is peering into the contents of a large fishing net._

_“Is that… ?” one exclaims, rearing back._

_“Human bones. And rotten fish,” Silvani replies, yanking the net closer. “They were just… floating there when I came to see what we caught.”_

_The other man swallows visibly. “Maybe we shouldn’t fish here again.”_

_Silvani’s sweating in the evening sun and his face is flushed. “This is not the only thing. You’ve seen it, too, haven’t you - the mysterious lights at night, like distant bonfires in the forest. Enzo went to investigate, and he never returned! We looked everywhere. And then the screams, the… the floating figures in the corner of the vision! This island is no place for the living.”_

_The third man scoffs. “Oh, please, not this again. Enzo just got spooked, like you; there’s a boat missing - he probably left for Lido. You’re letting the local legends spook you - but you may be right about one thing,” he looks distastefully at the fishing net. “We can’t eat anything that grows on this island, not even berries. We should take turns getting supplies from Lido.”_

A third memory fizzles into existence.

 _It’s a moonlit night. They’re outside, and Silvani stands alone beside a giant hole in the ground, littered with a massive pile of bones and skulls_. _There are two fresh bodies amidst the remains - the two individuals who’d been talking to Silvani._

“What the hell is it?” Parker whispers, horrified.

“Plague pits,” she explains in a low voice. “Victims of the Black Death, tossed into giant holes like this when burning them proved to be too expensive.”

_The moonlight hits the bones at an angle, and something shimmers over them._

“It is said that some were still alive when they were thrown in.”

Her words prove prophetic. _The bones start to rattle in a non-existent wind, then seemingly animate themselves and start crawling up the steep walls of the pit. The groaning, fresh bodies are more sure of their movements; rotting flesh and bleached-white finger bones reach out towards Silvani, who shrieks and slips, tumbling into the pit. The bones and the bodies swarm over him, eager, almost desperate in their attempt to rend the flesh off his skin. His screams slowly peter out._

More memories flicker by, faster and faster.

_There’s one of a man flying through the corridor after having been shoved by an invisible force, which manifests itself into a woman who screams in his face._

_Another of a woman, being choked against a wall, huge lacerations bleeding down her face._

_Images of ghostly figures screaming in the asylum’s operating rooms, being sawed open, having their brains electrocuted, and going through other insane, nonsensical horrors._

A final memory bombards them, and Isabelle knows it’s final because _they’re at the top of the infamous bell-tower._

_It's night, and there are no stars, nor moon in the almost unnaturally black sky. Wind whistles through the trees, far down below. She looks around the belfry, once repurposed into a lighthouse, and now a haunting ruin for all those who grew up with the legends._

_There’s a ghostly figure standing perilously close to the edge, a beak-nosed plague mask obscuring his face. A white coat flutters around him. Silvani, whose figure is more solid, stands a way back, eyes wide, and intent on the first one. The apparition shudders in the howling wind, then bunches on himself. His hands claw and he runs his nails down his face, then throws his head back and emits a bloodcurdling scream before throwing himself off the edge._

Parker makes an aborted motion with knees bent, as though only just realizing that this is just a memory, no matter how realistic, and there would be nothing he could have done for the ghostly figure even if it had been real.

He breathes, then walks over to the edge to stand beside Silvani.

She doesn’t go to them, because she knows what they’ll see.

_The apparition, the doctor - still alive and twitching when he hits the ground, blood pooling beneath him. His last sight, that of the infinite multitude of ghostly victims that he had created surrounding him, convalescing into a dark green mist and pouring into his mouth, choking him with the horror of his own actions._

Parker inhales sharply, stumbles back, then rips off E.D.I.T.H. from his nose. The recording fizzles out as static, plunging them back into the moonlit ambiance of her ballroom in the Palazzo. He switches on the lights, then stares at her. His face is green.

“Oh, _God_.”

She’d shooed Parker to bed to catch up on what sleep they could catch up on before F.R.I.D.A.Y. alerts them to the disappearance of the mysterious fog around Poveglia, which is when they’ll depart for the island.

She herself is too keyed up to sleep, so she goes through the footage twice more. “E.D.I.T.H.?” She murmurs, pausing the video, her eyes on the motionless figure of Silvani.

“ _It’s certainly a possibility, but I can’t ensure a hundred percent guarantee.”_

It’s not a confirmation, but it’s close enough for it to spark a hint of satisfaction. She rubs a hand down her face. Her eyes feel crusty and sore, and her bones seem shaky. She drops into an armchair next to her mother’s portrait.

“Don’t let me sleep, FRI,” she murmurs.

  
  


###  **July 24th, 2024**

**Somewhere on the Venetian Lagoon**

“You‘re off your game, Parker,” she says, guiding the stolen toppetta along the water. She keeps an eye on him as he winces visibly, and rubs his forehead.

“It’s fine,” he snaps, then sighs when she raises her eyebrows. “It’s just… I’ve been feeling weird since… since Beck exposed me in NYC. I keep sensing threats everywhere. It’s just information overload, nothing else. It won’t be a problem.”

“Better not be.”

She’d insisted he wears his own veil as well - she wants to remain anonymous from Riva and his cronies for as long as possible. They hadn’t bothered with suits, either - he had his shooters and extra web-fluid canisters, while she… well, even without weapons, she is never really defenseless.

Especially in Venice.

“You’re saying that… what, all of it, was just an illusion?” he shakes his head. “All the things he saw were just projections by Beck’s illusion drones?”

His attempt to change the subject just reinforces her concern, but she lets it go and hopes she hasn’t made a mistake in allowing him to tag along.

She gestures towards the water. A mist wafts up from the Lagoon, obscuring their tracks from the mainland. “This was carefully planned right from the get-go. I think the real-estate crew got separated almost as soon as they stepped foot on the island, or perhaps soon after the first memory, when the moaning started.”

“The other members in the memory,” she continues, weaving through the Lagoon, “ - Enzo, who disappeared, the bodies in the pit - all of them were probably just… holograms that Silvani interacted with. He probably didn’t even know that his teammates were long gone.”

“Gone… as in dead?”

She shakes her head and course-corrects to account for the slight wind that’s picked up. “Imprisoned most likely. They probably singled out Silvani because he seemed to be more… susceptible and superstitious, and he’d be perfect for a statement. I can’t be sure, but none of their profiles indicated that any of the Stark ex-employees following Riva have any homicidal tendencies. No, that was just… Beck.”

Parker runs a hand down his veiled face. “So the cops must’ve ended up the same way - locked up somewhere, probably being haunted by ghosts that aren’t real. How can you be so sure, though? I mean - after everything - is it _that_ hard to believe that _ghosts_ are real?”

Her mouth quirks up. “I’m not contesting that ghosts exist. I’m just saying that everything that sent Silvani packing from one asylum to another was just too… _perfect_. His memories fit with all the legends almost _too_ well.”

“These were stories that we - me and Riva, _native_ Venetians - grew up with,” she continues. “The moaning of ghostly patients, the pits with hundreds of skeletal remains, the doctor who jumped off the bell-tower and got consumed by a mysterious green fog made up of his victims? All legends, all bedtime stories to scare us to sleep, to warn us off Poveglia.”

She pulls up to the little-known _cavana_ on the eastern coast of the island, which is just as run down and broken as it had been decades ago, and moors the boat to a pole before stepping out. Poveglia is deathly silent, with not even the birds daring to make their nests here, where so many have been lost; another thing that hasn’t changed.

Parker winces again when he thinks she isn’t looking, then takes a deep breath and shoves on the E.D.I.T.H. glasses. “Do you have a guess for where they’ll be keeping them?”

She shrugs. “Riva’s sticking to the mythology of this place, so I’d suggest the prison facilities. Only thing is - I’ve never discovered the prisons, so we’ll have to do some digging. The biggest area of the island is the burning fields - we’re going to have to split up to cover the whole region.”

  
  
  


###  **The Burning Fields**

**Poveglia Island**

There’s only one legend about the island that she’s ever been inclined to believe - that of the burning grounds. It is said that so many plague victims had been burned in mass pyres in these fields, that the soil is little more than human ash.

She’d always been horrified by the tale, but it no longer troubles her, because she thinks it’d have been so much better to be dead _before_ you got turned to ash.

Thanos hadn’t bothered offering her that courtesy.

The bridge is shrouded by a faint mist - _natural, not an illusion, she can feel the moisture_ \- and Parker emerges from the trees when he spots her coming. He shakes his head as he falls into step.

“I didn’t find anything. We need to look at the buildings,” she says as they walk along the bridge. “It’s been decades - maybe I missed…”

Her earpiece crackles at the same time E.D.I.T.H. glows blue. “ _Skipper, something big’s coming. The power just went out across the Lido boardwalk.”_

Parker exchanges a startled glance with her. “Riva is tapping into the electricity grid in Lido to power his drones,” she explains. “It’s why the power outages always seem to happen concurrently with the fog.”

His eyes flicker over her shoulder, and widen. “Only thing is,” he swallows, “ - it’s not fog.”

She whirls around, and her eyes lock onto the mass of mud and water bubbling out of the water in the canal. It rumbles as it rises up into a misshapen, twenty-five feet tall, vaguely humanoid _thing_.

“That’s a new one,” Parker mutters. His voice is low, but still somehow seems to carry across, because the thing spots them on the bridge, and roars, mud spittle flying out of its mouth. A huge ball of mud comes flying out of its raised, crooked arm, aimed right at them.

They both dive out of the way, in opposite directions, only just avoiding being pummeled by the sphere that collides with the bridge. The neglected, rusted construction, already centuries old, caves in under an impact that seemed far too powerful, even for a ball of caked mud.

Isabelle meets Parker’s gaze across the now deformed bridge, and the look in his eyes confirms her suspicions - _illusion._

She nods, then as one, they launch themselves at the mud monster.

She doesn’t have his powers; she can’t sense the drones, so she just attacks indiscriminately, weaving her own waves of water, drawn from the canal, _around_ the massive thing. She catches a few drones, their sleek, white exteriors being crushed under the pressure of her attacks, and the illusion spasms, pixelating rapidly.

She makes the mistake of thinking that the creature couldn’t possibly touch her because it doesn’t have any physical mass, so she doesn’t bother dodging to avoid its lumbering arms. The hit is hard enough to send her careening dangerously towards the trees before Spider-Man’s web snags her waist and yanks her into the woods.

“That thing packs a wallop,” she mutters, as he sets her down gently. She wipes the mud, which is all too real, from her eyes. She is already caked with the stuff, and grimly anticipates a further mess the longer this takes.

In the canal, the Mud-Thing roars with rage, its huge, warped head swiveling back and forth in search of its target.

“Concussive blasters,” Parker explains, massaging his temples. “Dialed up to eleven, too, from the looks of it. Riva’s getting desperate - he must’ve recognized us, despite the veils.”

She looks at him carefully. “You can’t sense the drones, can you?”

He hesitates, then shakes his head. “There’s too much input… it’s everywhere, _they’re_ everywhere, I can’t… _pinpoint_.”

She exhales quietly. “We need to split up.” She raises a hand when he goes to argue. “This thing is nothing but a big ass distraction,” she points to the monster slamming its gigantic fists in the canal, making big splashes.

Her words trip over each other as she rushes to explain. “I spotted boats docked near the _cavana_ when I parked - they’re planning on making a break for it. Get to the mainframe - they’ll probably be in the buildings - use E.D.I.T.H. to hack into the drones and stop them, okay?”

“I’m not leaving you out here to face that thing by yourself!”

“I’ll be fine,” she says, with far more confidence than she feels. “But only if you go now and bring down that thing from the inside.”

He glares at her, his fingers fisting, then curses foully. She’s never heard words like that from his mouth before, but she has no time to confront him now. He nods, then looks at her with a hard glint in his eyes. “Be careful,” he whispers, and it sounds like a command.

An echo of a smile trembles across her lips. “Never,” she whispers, just before launching herself out of the woods.

  
  


“F.R.I.D.A.Y.?” she growls, as once again, her attacks seem to barely make a dent.

“ _Some kind of force field, equipped with powerful shock absorbers? I don’t know - but what I can tell you is that he’s draining almost all of the power from Lido now.”_

“Any suggestions?”

“ _Avoid the monster’s attacks - I’ll try and pinpoint any readings from the drones.”_

She dives as another mud ball comes flying at her, retaliating with a wide blast of water that takes down at least one drone. But she’s having to rely on luck more than skill at this point. “Should be easy - it’s an abandoned island - there’s not much in here that can emit electrical signals, right?”

As though prompted by her words, a bolt of lightning streaks across the sky, and she feels the following thunder’s rumble in her bones.

“ _Do you like tempting fate?”_

The visual interface in her veil flickers on, and green circles pop up on the HUD, highlighting anything electrical. She shoots forward and shoves a freezing fist through an invisible drone, and yanks out the wires.

Electricity sparks across her skin and it tilts dangerously, but she uses the momentum to slam herself into another one, which is emitting some heavy heat - **_lasers_**. She times her impact so the drone jerks and its line of fire tears through a third one.

A powerful concussive force rips through the drone beneath her, blasting her into the broken bridge. The railing bashes against her forehead, hard enough to leave her dazed for a moment. The HUD flickers; the veil must’ve been damaged by the impact. She peels it off, lets it drop into the water.

She grabs the steel railing and vaults herself on the bridge as the monster whirls towards her. It throws its meaty arms forward and a blast of thick, viscous mud comes shooting towards her.

In a swift move, she intercepts the mud blast with a huge wave of water, groaning under the pressure as her feet skid backward, rapidly approaching the broken edge of the bridge. She closes her eyes and focuses; torrents rise up on either side, holding back the pressure wave of mud advancing towards her.

Her eyes are clenched shut, and there are pillars of water that she’s trying to sustain, which is why she doesn’t hear F.R.I.D.A.Y. 's frantic screams in time.

Isabelle doesn’t notice the first bullet puncturing her middle, but she feels the blazing heat of the subsequent ones. She stumbles, and her attack falters for just a moment, but that’s enough - the waves of water she’d been holding up crash and the blast of mud hits her head-on.

She goes crashing into the drone that had shot her from behind, over the shorn edge of the bridge, and onto the other end. The impact drives the breath from her lungs - which are searing hot - _everything_ is searing hot, _burning_ through her, and she can’t even scream because it hurts too much to even _breathe_.

Her fingers probe at the holes - _holes!_ \- on her and come away wet. She can feel the bullets that hadn’t passed through, that are still inside her. She can feel their wrongness, piercing her soft insides, and her fingers strain towards the water… but for the very first time in her entire life, it doesn’t respond to her.

Through her dwindling vision, she sees the mud monster breaking into a million pixels as the drones reveal themselves, dozens of them surrounding her. **_Parker_** , her mind whispers, or perhaps it is F.R.I.D.A.Y., yelling through her earpiece, and the word should mean something, she knows that, but for the life of her, she can’t tell what it is.

But it is important - that much she knows.

Her bloody fingers wrap around the broken steel railing of the bridge. With a force of will she didn’t know she possessed, she pulls herself forward - groaning as she does so - and rolls down the shattered edge of the bridge and into the canal below.

It hurts worse than the bullets had.

She screams as the water penetrates her, probes her insides, and it feels like being ripped apart only to be made whole again. Isabelle sinks, almost insensate with agony, barely responding as her body tries in vain to fix what she’d broken.

Darkness is encroaching in her vision, and she would smile if she had the energy - darkness is peace, darkness is quiet, darkness is Tony and Jarvis and Howard and _Maria_.

The painting in the Palazzo’s lounge flashes across her mind. Maria’s brown eyes, sparkling with joy as her fingers make music.

Her mother’s eyes, brilliantly bold.

_Morgan’s eyes._

Her own snap open, and she shoots out of the canal, huge waves of water following in her wake. Her senses are heightened now, and her heart is beating twice as fast underneath the single block of ice that her body has turned into.

She hovers until she’s level with the drones who turn as one towards her, their movements slow and sluggish in her eyes.

“You wanted an elemental?” she says, and her voice is almost serene. Her eyes burn cold.

“ _You got one_.”

They don’t stand a chance. She is everywhere at once, and she moves so fast and punches so hard she wouldn’t be able to recount her own actions later on. Her waves tear through the machines, leaving ripped wires and short fires in their wake. She unleashes her fury and sorrow and hatred and when she finally stills and hovers over the broken remnants of the bridge, the canal is significantly drained.

The shore is littered with smoky, sparking drone corpses. She holds on tight to the adrenaline fighting to leave her body - it’s the only thing keeping her going at this point and she isn’t done yet.

“ _Isabelle!”_ F.R.I.D.A.Y. never calls her by name - she must’ve been trying to catch her attention for a while.

“What is it, FRI?” Her words feel strange, heavy on her tongue.

“ _Spidey’s in trouble._ ”

She turns towards the island with the ruins. Light flashes from within the broken buildings, and if she strains her ears, she can hear explosions. Above her, thunder rumbles and she barely feels the rain pelting her frozen form.

“I’m on my way.”

  
  


It’s just one sentence, and it whitens out his vision.

“ _Peter,”_ E.D.I.T.H. 's voice crackles through the earpiece. “ _Collins just went down; F.R.I.D.A.Y. 's called in emergency services.”_

The church disappears, replaced by the vision of a battlefield smothered with ash and blood, a victory that’s not a victory. It crashes on him all over again, the despair that feels like home inside him at this point, that hadn’t left his side since the day Tony, his mentor, the only _father_ he’d ever known, had sacrificed his life for the universe. For… for _him_.

And now… his sister had done the same.

He screams, and launches himself at a drone, kicking it so hard it goes crashing into a wall and disintegrates on impact. He pitches a web to another, swings across, reverse-somersaults and sticks to the wall, then yanks hard enough that the machine smashes into three more.

Riva had a bigger group than he’d expected; a dozen minions yelling and running about. He’d barred the door, so they’re trying to escape his fury and pieces of their own creations raining down upon them by smashing through boarded windows and ducking underneath desks.

His webs have snatched up guns and batons and a whole horde of improvised weapons, and he’s been trying to bank his rage, keep his promise to Collins, but now she’s _dead_ , isn’t she, because he hadn’t been _there_ , watching her back like he was _supposed_ to.

There’s no point holding it in anymore.

He smashes his fist onto a man’s nose, thick satisfaction running through his veins at the feel of blood beneath his knuckles, then twists around and kicks the stomach of another who’d been creeping behind him. His arm comes up to block a plank of wood aimed at his head, and he grabs the offender’s neck and headbutts him hard. He crumples at Peter’s feet.

His blows are fast, and he takes down enemy after enemy with no thought for care or consequence. When the last of the minion has been incapacitated, either by his webs or his fists, he pauses and breathes.

His neck prickles and he twists away just in time to avoid a bullet whizzing past his head. He isn’t fast enough, so it still manages to skim the side of his ear.

Riva is standing on the ruins of the altar at the other end of the church, a gun in his violently trembling fingers. Behind him, through the holes in the ceiling, Peter can see lightning flash.

His hand snakes out, the web shooting out faster than the lightning, and he snatches up the gun as it careens towards him. Riva’s eyes are wide, and he backs up until he hits the wall as Peter strides towards him.

“ _Peter_ ,” E.D.I.T.H. begins, but he mutes her and shoves the glasses in his pocket.

His world narrows to one point - the end of the dark, lonely tunnel he’s been walking in for the past few months has only one figure, illuminating his future.

William Ginter Riva.

Nothing else matters, there’s nothing out there for him, no one.

The older man tries to run, but another web shoots out to pin him to the crumbling, graffitied wall. Peter’s hands are steady as a statue when he points the gun at Riva’s chest, whose pants darken with the evidence of his terror.

“Please, please, _please_ … you’re a hero, you’re an Avenger. You don’t _kill_.”

“I killed _Beck_ ,” he snarls. This close, he can hear Riva’s frantic heartbeat. “I killed thousands of Outriders. I have _killed_.”

To his utter horror, Peter feels tears trembling at the corner of his eyes. “You _destroyed_ my life. You _killed_ my friend. You took _everything_ from me.”

“Not everything,” a familiar voice replies softly.

He twists around, points the gun at the intruder who’d snuck up behind him - an impossibility under most circumstances.

But the figure _is_ an impossibility.

A humanoid figure carved out of ice hovers above the aisles. Her frozen form is heavily streaked with what looks like blood, but she is undoubtedly recognizable.

“Izzy?” His voice breaks on a sob.

She touches down next to him. Her features are prominent on the ice, as though cleverly sculpted by a master artist, and he can see the compassion shining in the depths of her eyes even through the cold. “He hasn’t taken everything from you.”

He whirls around and presses the muzzle of his gun against Riva’s chest. “Don’t you see?” He waves his free hand at the destruction around him. “There’s no mainframe, no recording of what he did! There’s nothing! He’s destroyed it all! I have _nothing_ left!”

She moves into his line of sight, and he meets her gaze helplessly, uncaring of the tears dripping down his face. “You still have your _soul_. _”_

He knows what she’s saying, what she means by that, but he couldn’t care less. All he feels is rage, and all he wants is vengeance. “He deserves to die for what he’s done!”

“That’s not for you to decide.” Her voice is calm, and it makes him want to rage, against her, against the world. His hands tremble, but her eyes don’t leave his.

“Why do you care - you’re only here for E.D.I.T.H., anyway!”

Her expression falters for the first time, then softens. “Peter… I came to Venice looking for _you_. Because _you_ are my brother's best investment, not her. He put his time and effort in _you_ , because he thought you were worth it.”

Her voice is hoarse, rough but utterly, completely convinced. “Don’t you dare prove him wrong.”

Tears blur his vision and his hands tremble harder, but her own fingers reach out to slowly curl around the revolver and tug it gently from his grip. He wipes his face with his elbow, then nods.

He isn’t able to stop himself from punching the lights out of Riva, though.

She nods approvingly, then looks at the scene of devastation around them, not sparing a single glance at the figures on the walls still struggling against their web binds. “F.R.I.D.A.Y. will get something out of this,” she says, and it doesn’t sound like consolation, just confidence. “We just have too…” her words stutter to a stop and her eyes widen.

He barely catches her before she crumples.

The ice is slowly melting off her form, revealing her skin, which is waxen and far too pale. She jerks in his arms, once, twice.

“What’s happening to you?!” he demands, his hands hovering over her form frantically. He finally grabs her shoulders, ignoring the biting cold, and rolls her to her side so she doesn’t choke on her own blood.

She retches red-spotted phlegm, and he wipes it off with trembling hands. “Bullets still inside me…” she gasps. Her eyes widen, and she starts wheezing, her fingers clawing at her chest.

The water that had held up her form is almost completely gone now, and he sees the holes in her suit where the bullets had gone through. “No, no, no, no, _no!_ E.D.I.T.H.!” He screams, slamming on the glasses and unmuting her.

F.R.I.D.A.Y. 's measured voice comes through instead. “ _A bullet penetrated her chest. There’s a first aid kit on the western shelf.”_ Webs whizz out to snag it. “ _There’s a sterile dressing packaged in plastic in the kit. Peel off the paper, tape the sterile end over the hole firmly. It’ll form a chest seal.”_

He does as told. It seems to have an immediate effect, as Isabelle calms somewhat, but the water pouring off her body is being replaced with blood, of which she’s losing a lot. “Where are the emergency services?!”

“ _Almost here,”_ F.R.I.D.A.Y. explains, still almost abnormally calm. “ _You know how to make a tourniquet?”_ When he nods frantically, she directs him to make one above the gaping hole in her thigh.

 _“Place the gauze on the wounds in the lower abdomen and apply pressure._ ”

Isabelle stiffens, her eyes roll back to her head and she starts convulsing. “F.R.I.D.A.Y.?!”

Just then, the door bursts open, and a bald, burly man comes crashing through, a gun in his hand. Behind him, medical professionals in scrubs carry in a stretcher, as a woman hurries over to him.

“It’s okay,” she tells him in a British accent. “You can let go now… we’ll take it from here. It’s okay.” She turns to the others. “Over here!”

He hears snatches of hurried conversations through the ringing in his hand as he backs off from the seizing patient. His hands, painted with blood, are trembling violently. Only certain phrases stick inside his mind; “ _\- multiple GSW…_ ”, “ _\- no sign of pneumothorax…_ ”, “ _\- hypovolemic shock…_ ”

“Peter Benjamin Parker.”

The burly man from before is staring intently at him, grip tight around his revolver, and Peter knows what he’s going to say even before he says it, even though the gun’s not actually pointed at him. He closes his eyes, raises his arms above his head, and falls to his knees.

“You’re under arrest on suspicion of murder and multiple accounts of attempted homicide. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defense if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you say may be given in evidence.”

The handcuffs click around his wrists with a finality that seems absolute.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **  
> General Context  
> **  
>    
> **Poveglia**
> 
> I did a lot of research on this. I hope it pays off. Any Venetians out there, feel free to point out errors in the comments down below; I've done my best, but I've never been to Italy so all I got is the Internet. If I've crossed any cultural taboos, I apologize - I've tried to be as respectful as I possibly could.
> 
> Poveglia Island. In real life, rumored to be one of the most haunted locations in the world. Abandoned, off-limits to the public. 
> 
> The site of a hospital which was once used to isolate Black Plague victims, then a few hundred years later was repurposed into a mental asylum where the inhabitants were tortured by an insane doctor who loved lobotomies. 
> 
> Really creepy place. Bell-tower especially. 
> 
> Really wanna go there one day, but alas.
> 
> The island that’s closest to Poveglia is Lido di Venezia, or Venice Lido.
> 
> Pellestrina is an island south of Lido. Chioggia is a small town at the very bottom of Pellestrina. Tightly-knit people; aren’t super fond of outsiders.
> 
> **Medical Stuff**
> 
> I'm not a doctor; all of my expertise, once again, comes from the internet. Any mistakes, feel free to point them out in the reviews.
> 
> **  
> MCU Context  
> **
> 
> **Maria Collins Carbonell**
> 
> For those of you wondering why Isabelle is a 'Collins' despite being Tony Stark's sister, this is why.
> 
> In the comics, Maria Stark was born Maria Collins Carbonell. I have no idea what the ‘Collins’ was for so I just made something up. 
> 
> I made Maria Italian because Tony Stark was half-Italian in one of the comics. I made her the heir of a wealthy family who had a palazzo (mansion) in Venice and everything, where Collins was born.
> 
> Tony, on the other hand, was born and raised in Manhattan in the Stark Mansion. This is canon.
> 
> Another doubt you may have had (at least I’m imagining you had) - Why is her name ‘Isabelle’ instead of ‘Isabella’, because the latter is the actual Italian version of the name?
> 
> Maria was half-Italian, half-French herself. It was a coin toss. I was comfortable with Isabelle (French version), so I rolled with it.


	11. When the Stars Throw Down their Spears

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rather an exposition-heavy chapter; hope I've managed to make enough sense.
> 
> Much thanks to my beta, ElessarII, for reviewing this chapter!!
> 
> I understand the pace is a little slow for those who are Mass Effect fans, and it's gonna be a while before the ME universe even comes into the picture, but the build-up is just as important. Trust me, when Mass Effect actually rolls around the corner, we're all gonna have to hit the ground running.
> 
> **Warnings:** Descriptions of body horror involved, but nothing that hasn't already crossed MCU screens before, but nevertheless might be a trigger for someone. Please stay safe. 
> 
> Also, some minor swearing. Again, nothing that hasn't been seen or heard before.

_When the stars threw down their spears_

_And water’d heaven with their tears:_

_Did he smile his work to see?_

_Did he who made the Lamb make thee?_

\- The Tyger; William Blake

  
  


She drifts in and out of consciousness, glimpsing a different vision each time.

There’s one where her bed is rocking violently, people are shouting around her, and she remembers seeing the stars.

Another one where a strong smell assaults her senses, and a bright light is shining on her face - but, that’s not right - she isn’t heading anywhere with a bright light; she’s always known her final destination will be darkness and pain. She remembers muttering, “ - don’t let me sleep,” over and over again, before finally succumbing into the nothingness.

She doesn’t wake up again.

* * *

“I’d rather you give it to me straight, Agent Simmons,” Pepper says.

The young agent sighs. “The bullets which didn’t pass through were few but caused more damage than the ones that did. Her spinal cord is severely damaged, and we’ve operated as best we can, but… best case scenario, she’ll be paralyzed from the neck down, even if she _does_ wake up.”

“Water heals her,” Pepper points out through gritted teeth. Her eyes burn. “And you have plenty of that around here.”

Simmons shrugs. “The adrenaline rush that prompted her body to undergo temporary cryogenic stasis also strained her auricular nerve to the point of non-function. She is, essentially, human.”

“Can you do _anything_?” Rhodey murmurs from beside her. His posture is stiff, but Pepper has known him long enough to spot the faint tremors racking his body.

“We can keep her comfortable,” she admits.

“I’m very sorry.”

* * *

She dreams.

They’re formless, her dreams, without any substance, just a swirl of sounds and shapes in a bare landscape drenched in bright orange. They make little sense.

In her dreams, she doesn’t remember who she is, where she is, what she is. She just… _is_.

But some shapes, some _sounds_ have more of an impact than others.

An all-too-familiar whine of something powerful, swiftly followed by a blinding blue triangle burning brightly against the tangerine terrain, that makes her hurt and hope in equal measures.

Words spilling into the multitude, half-formed memories released from their cage.

_‘… story is not yet finished.’_

_‘... said I’m your namesake.’_

_‘... not your darkness to breach.’_

She understands nothing, and eventually, the words become meaningless, collapsing and drifting in the coral-tinted void that is her mind, and she once again loses herself in them.

* * *

“She is going to have questions,” Phil murmurs. “And you’re going to tell her _everything_.”

Fury arches an eyebrow. “Everything?”

“Everything. She hasn’t asked me, will _never_ ask me, but she needs to know the truth. She should know if you’re really doing this.”

“She might not forgive you. Forgive us.”

Phil shares a loaded look with his mentor. “That’s a risk we’re going to have to take.”

* * *

“It didn’t work when you tried it with _him_ ,” Pepper whispers furiously. Her voice betrays her heartbreak, her desperate hope. “How can you be sure it’ll work this time?”

There’s an incomprehensible look on Fury’s face. “I would’ve said that it has worked on an Inhuman before, with no side effects, but I’ve learned the hard way that we can’t rely on precedence with this particular treatment. But what other choice do we have?” He sighs. “I have to believe that she’s clinging to this life for a reason. Any other person would’ve given up by now.”

“How long will it take?”

“If it’s successful - _minutes_.” She gives him a startled look, so he shrugs. “It’s designed for someone like her, and my best scientists have spent the last few months working out the kinks. She’ll be back on her feet in no time. Potts,” he hesitates, then barrels on. “It’s her last hope.”

She looks at him for a long moment, then shudders.

“Do it.”

* * *

Two instances would linger in her mind when she would wake up weeks later.

A brief instance when a familiar voice had pierced the orange veil of her dreams, assuring that _he_ was safe, that he was secure, that he was _shielded_. She doesn’t trust the voice fully for reasons she doesn’t remember, but she trusts it in this and drifts off again.

The second is the memory of sensations, the brush of a kiss that had carried with it the warm scent of sunlight and a squeeze of her fingers, and they had made her ache so heavily that she had readily slipped into the oblivion when it finally came calling.

  
  


###  **TIME: UNKNOWN**

####  **LOCATION: UNKNOWN** ****

The consistent, annoying beeping wakes her up.

She blinks up at the ceiling, swallowing past the dryness in her throat. “Wh…” she licks her chapped lips. “ _Parker?_ ”

A woman’s face interrupts her vision, frowning. Isabelle squints against the whiteness of her overcoat. “The sedative wore off early,” the stranger mutters to a small, blinking device. “Subject is becoming resistant almost _too_ fast. Might have to chart a curve for the anomaly - observe if it links to Inhuman abilities.”

Isabelle slowly blinks away the fog clouding her mind. Her stomach is churning unpleasantly.

A lot has changed over the years working with S.H.I.E.L.D., then HYDRA, then S.H.I.E.L.D. again. But there are some things that have remained constant - one of which is that it is _never_ a good situation when an unknown doctor/scientist refers to you as a _‘subject’_.

“Where is _Parker_?” Her voice is stronger this time, but the stranger doesn’t give her a second glance, let alone answer her.

Isabelle takes a moment to catalog her surroundings. One door. A shutter-controlled window. A couple of holographic interfaces on her right monitoring her status. There’s an intravenous line to her arm, feeding her what looks like saline.

“Who are you? Where am I? What… what are you doing to me?”

The doctor frowns at her. “I suggest you relax, Agent Collins. This will go much more easily if you cooperate.” And then she swipes a finger over the hologram decisively.

Isabelle’s gaze snaps to the saline bag. As she watches, a dark blue liquid dissolves in the liquid and slowly trickles down the line.

She has seconds.

There’s a bitter taste in her tongue, a taste she has experienced all too recently - _adrenaline_. It is sluggish to respond, but it’s enough to shove away nausea and jolt her fully to consciousness. Her fingers wrap around the railing tightly and she rolls her ankles to get the blood flowing.

The woman pauses in the midst of fiddling with the controls beside her bed to peer at a screen. “Heart rate is spiking,” she reports. “Subject is getting agitated.”

“Yeah,” Isabelle snarls. “She is.” And then she swings out her legs, wraps her thighs around the doctor’s neck, and yanks her towards herself.

It works almost too well. The doctor’s forehead hits the bed frame hard and she slumps, unconscious.

Natasha Romanoff would have been proud.

She yanks out the catheter with a wince, then slides out of the bed. With a heave, she picks up the woman and deposits her on the bed, then restrains her arm with the IV line. The hit hadn’t been hard enough to keep her down for long. She’s just about to turn away when her eyes fall on the doctor’s face.

Her skin is melting.

Or rather, it _appears_ to be melting, but instead of spooling on the sheets, it bubbles inwards, to be replaced with green rubbery skin. Her chin is ridged with lines, her ears sharpen and point towards her hairless head, which is just as grooved.

Isabelle hesitates, then gently lays a finger on the woman’s wrist. Then almost immediately snatches it back as her stomach roils. She presses her hand to her mouth to keep from retching.

Not an illusion, not an advanced nano mask.

Isabelle can’t sense a drop of water beneath that… _thing’s_ skin.

There’s a heavy feeling in her chest. The room swims in front of her eyes, and she stumbles a bit, her gaze locked onto the - _alien_ , Isabelle forces herself to think the word.

She staggers towards the window and slams a hand on the interface. The shutter slides open silently to reveal glass that looks out into the darkness.

For a moment, she deludes herself into thinking that it is night in the facility’s time zone, but then her gaze falls upon the huge blue-green, cloudy marble hanging in the darkness.

And the bottom drops out of her stomach.

She knows that sphere. She has seen photos of that sphere far too many times in her life not to immediately recognize it. And yet, everything in her screams that she was never supposed to be seeing it from _this_ angle.

_Earth._

They had taken her to _space_.

Her breathing speeds up and she backs away from the impossible image in front of her. She’d… she’d just been in Venice, she wasn’t supposed to… _no_.

Space. Aliens.

Infinity Stones. _Thanos._

 _No_.

Unable to tear her eyes away from the vision, she backs up until she hears the door sliding open at her approach, then slips out.

She doesn’t encounter another soul as she sprints.

The hallway she’s in follows similar architectural lines to the one she’d observed in the room she’d escaped from - metallic panels, crisp geometrical shapes, holographic interfaces, and a clean, sterile atmosphere.

 _Aliens_. In what is most likely a spaceship, parked so close to the Earth as to be easily spotted by F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s satellites, and yet it hadn’t been. Or it _had_ been, and she has been asleep for far too long and they have already…

No, she’s not going to go there. She doesn’t even know who ‘they’ are, except that they're alienswho can choose to look like humans if they want to and are aware of and not averse to experimenting on her kind.

There’s a door at the far end of the corridor. As she approaches, it automatically hisses open.

The vast space is immediately recognizable as a command center, framed by glass that looks out into the void of space, interrupted by a few billion pinpricks of light. As she watches, an asteroid zooms by, far too close to the facility, but is then deflected by a force field that shimmers to visibility for a brief second before disappearing again.

Cloaking tech.

 _S.H.I.E.L.D._ cloaking tech.

That’s when the migraine hits her.

Isabelle’s had them before, but the onset is usually slow, not like this - this sudden, incessant pounding headache that forces her to scrunch her eyes shut and press her lips together against the bile that comes rushing up to her throat.

Her feet skid on too-slick floors, which split off into oblong-shaped alcoves occupied by recliners and drinks. She rounds a corner, which is when she spots them.

Dozens of green aliens in uniforms - walking about, manipulating holograms, shouting into comms. They seem unaware of her or haven’t noticed her yet, which is a good thing, because her migraine is pulsing as though something inside her skull wants _out_ , and she bites down a groan and doubles over.

Her body feels hot with the adrenaline that had allowed her to escape the med bay burning through her veins. Her thoughts race to try and make sense of whatever it is that is causing the reaction. A delayed reaction of some sort?

“You’re not supposed to be here,” a voice mutters, far too loudly, and far too close.

An alien is looming over her, scowling furiously. Its eyes are coal-black, with no visible differentiation of the sclera and the pupils. Its hand is on a holstered gun, while its other fingers clamp down on her shoulder.

Isabelle has never moved so fast. In the span between moments, she’s disarmed the alien and is now holding it at gunpoint with its own weapon.

It’s on the ground, eyes carefully tracking her fingers that tremble with the effort to keep it steady. It’s too bright here, too loud, and she’s made enough noise that other aliens come running, and soon, she’s surrounded by scores of hostiles, all aiming at her.

Some distant part of her mind is analyzing the make-up of the gun, which looks remarkably similar to an Earth pistol, and yet has been undeniably made by aliens, possibly the same ones who built this ship. Not all the weapons are guns, though; some have what look like batons with strange purple crystals on top, glowing dimly.

“Put the gun down,” a familiar voice says, and Isabelle looks up to see the crowd parting for two figures she really shouldn’t have been surprised to see here.

Nick Fury walks towards her, his trench coat billowing behind him in an invisible wind. Maria Hill follows closely behind.

Her headache, somehow, impossibly, doubles. Hill approaches her, concerned, wary - but a deeply buried instinct forces her to raise an icy fist, halting the other agent in her tracks.

Fog floats down her knuckles, and Hill eyes them for a moment, before raising her hands. “Collins, you’re still recovering. Put the gun down and let me take you back to the med bay.”

She shakes her head, her stomach heaving. Something is wrong, something is very _wrong_ , and she doesn’t know what it is - all she knows is that she needs to get _out..._ but out _where_ \- and now there’s a hand on her shoulder, steadying her, and she tries to breathe, tells herself to calm down - and for a second, she actually believes everything is going to be _fine_ \- but then fingers curl around her tight, trembling grip on the alien weapon.

It slips from her slack grip and clatters to the ground.

The skin-to-skin contact is the final straw. Her mind blanks out, the migraine sharpening to a single crystalline thought - _that’s not Maria Hill._

Her fingers are around Hill’s throat and she’s lifted and slammed her into the ground even before she realizes that she has moved. Hill scrabbles at her hand, gasping, her eyes wide and bulging, then when her fingers move towards the gun at her holster, Isabelle snarls, pins her wrist to the wall, and freezes until she yells and kicks out.

Her foot connects with Isabelle’s shin, but it doesn’t hurt, _nothing_ hurts, pain doesn’t matter, the only thing that does is _rip_ and _hunt_ and _destroy_. A long, deadly ice claw erupts out of her drawn fist and is just about to drive it into Hill’s carotid when a familiar voice rings through space.

“ _Izzy!_ ”

It’s not the shout that breaks through the haze of insensible rage, it’s the webbing that yanks her fist back. She follows the sticky substance to its wide-eyed owner, who has his own fist pointed towards her, index and pinky finger extended.

“Parker,” she breathes, her icy fist dissolving into olive skin. A wave of relief washes away the adrenaline, which is why she doesn’t notice the purple glow until it’s too late.

The blast of energy sends her flying into a wall. She falls in a loose heap, convulsing uncontrollably as the strange energy crawls through her veins. There’s a ringing in her ears.

Parker skids next to her, dropping to his knees and checking her pulse, then her eyelids. Fury and Hill loom behind him, an alien baton sparking in the former’s hands.

“Did you really have to do that?” Hill asks, massaging her neck. Her voice sounds strange to Isabelle’s dwindling consciousness.

Fury turns to her indignantly. It’s not a good look on him. “She completely lost it, almost killed you!”

“How did you even know that the Baton would work?”

He pats the weapon lightly. “It knocked off _Vers_. Besides, these beauties were built to take _things_ like her down.”

Hill sighs, straightens her uniform. “ _He_ isn’t going to be happy about this.”

It’s the last thing Isabelle hears before giving in to the darkness.

  
  


###  **August 14th, 2024**

####  **THE PEAK VII, S.W.O.R.D. HQ**

**LOCATION: EARTH’S ORBIT** ****

“Three weeks of peace and quiet, and the first thing you do when you wake up is attack your doctor,” a voice says as she emerges from the fog. “Why am I not surprised?”

She is launching out of bed even before she’s fully awake, but she doesn’t make it too far before something yanks her back into the mattress.

The med-bay is dark, but the starlight from the open window is enough to make out the manacles restraining her to the railing. She twists her hands, but the cuffs are solid - there’s no way she’s getting out of these.

“You done making a fool of yourself?” Nick Fury calls from beside the window. He isn’t looking at her, his eyes intent on the vision of Earth beyond the glass.

She glares at him. “You _shot_ me,” she spits.

He shakes his head. “Try again.”

She breathes out the rage. “Your _alien doppelgänger_ shot me.”

He hums in confirmation.

She casts her senses out, but there’s something wrong, something’s blocking her, and she feels a searing electric pain down her spinal cord, forcing her to loosen the reins on her powers. “What the _hell_ was that?”

“The cuffs also serve as Inhuman inhibitors. Use pain conditioning to prevent you from tapping into the auricular nerve - which, according to Doctor Goodman, is primarily responsible for sending Inhuman signals to and from the brain.” He shrugs when she snarls wordlessly. “Don’t look at me like that; you were the one who attacked _them_.”

“They were _experimenting_ on me.”

“Goodman brought you back from the brink of death, actually. I’ll be the first to admit Skrulls don’t have a great bedside manner, but she was trying to keep you healthy and calm.”

She stares at his profile. “Are you one of them?”

His dark eyes bore into hers. “What do you think?”

“I think you’ve been keeping too many secrets, and it’s time for you to spill.”

He nods slowly, as though he’d been expecting this. “You should know - the only reason you’re here right now, confronting me, is because Coulson kept up his end of the deal you made with him. He insisted I explain everything to you when you woke up.”

She remembers the bargain they’d made in the Lighthouse. Coulson had wanted Spider-Man in S.H.I.E.L.D. custody, and Isabelle has asked for just a small favor - Nick Fury’s last known location. “Where’s Parker?”

“Safe,” he assures her. “He’ll be by shortly after you and I have had our little chat. As for his fugitive status, Potts is working on his case and - from what I’ve heard - is raking J. Jonah Jameson over the coals.”

He doesn’t seem in any way inclined to remove the cuffs, so she slumps back into the pillow, making herself as comfortable as she can while still keeping him in her sights. “Skrulls?”

“A race of multi-morphous life forms from the Andromeda Galaxy. Non-carbon based species - completely different biology. You really don’t want to drink what they drink.”

She takes a deep breath. That’s what she’d sensed from the Skrulls she’d had physical contact with - an absence of _water_ in their systems. “What are they doing here?”

“Working for me. I have a small force here - soldiers, scientists. The rest of their people are on a distant planet whose location is classified.”

“And where is ‘here’? This… spaceship?”

He sighs. “Space _station_. It's called the Peak.” The words sound like they’re being dragged out of his mouth. “Serves as HQ for the organization I’m spearheading now - Surveillance of World and Orbit for Rapid Deployment.”

The acronym slides into place. “ _S.W.O.R.D._ \- a division of S.H.I.E.L.D. for space?”

“Space, other worlds, colonies - whatever we need to keep an eye on. And it’s not a part of S.H.I.E.L.D. It’s a completely separate operation.”

“Why?” Her voice is a whisper.

He’s looking out through the window, into the blackness of space, and her stomach clenches as she spots a look on his face that she’s all too familiar with.

She has seen it countless times on Tony _,_ after the Battle of New York. He would sneak up to the roof and lie under the stars. It wasn’t fear, not exactly.

Just a poisonous, haunted mixture of desperation and determination.

That combination, and the expression that accompanied it, had led to ULTRON.

“Do you remember Phase 2?”

She knows where this is going. “Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S.,” she says, swallowing. “Tesseract-based weapons to fight… to fight alien armies. _Nick…_ ”

“Imagine what we could’ve done to Thanos if we’d had that,” he says, finally turning around. His usually neutral face looks intense in the low light. “S.H.I.E.L.D. is no longer enough. You know it, I know it, _Coulson_ knows it. Look what happened when all we tried to do was _protect and defend_. We need to be _prepared_ for the next threat. S.W.O.R.D. helps me do that, as well as allowing me to keep a watch from up here.”

She remembers the shimmer of the cloaking force field. “Up here makes one forget what’s down there, Fury,” she murmurs.

“There are other divisions that deal with protecting Earth from within. Coulson’s crew is one of them. W.A.N.D. is another.”

“Other divisions manned by Skrulls with your face?”

“No, that’s just Talos,” he says, then hesitates. Which would look strange to anyone who hasn’t known Fury as long as she has. “It was a trial run.”

“ _That_ was a trial run? He almost got London submerged because he was too chicken to call me in!”

“It’s… a work in progress. Besides, he had his reasons.” He sighs a sigh so deep it sounds as though it is drowning him. “Collins, we can’t afford to have another Thanos. We lost too much last time. We weren’t prepared. Most of the people we lost might be back, but Earth will never be the same again. And even now, we just keep losing more.”

“What’s that mean?”

His hesitation is long enough to turn her body cold. “We’ve lost all contact with the Manswell Expedition.”

Her limbs feel leaden. “How?”

He shrugs. “Stark himself retrofitted their communication systems; he accounted for signal-interfering clouds like nebulae, proton storms, even tried to shore them up against alien interference. My best scientists have gotten no sign of distress beacons or unusual debris in their deep-space scans, and trust me, they’ve _looked._ ”

He shoves his hands in his trench-coat. “They’ve missed three of their monthly check-ins. We had anticipated eventual loss of contact - but not so soon. It’s like they just… _vanished_.”

Isabelle is suddenly reminded of Jacob Manswell, a man she had resented in the beginning for being indirectly responsible for her brother’s heartbreak, but then had grown to like and respect tremendously. He had been a better man than most people she knew, better than Tony, or any of the Avengers. Kind, strong, gentle, smart, funny.

All of that gone in the blink of an eye, as Thanos wiped him from existence. Only to be brought back - just to get promptly run over by a truck.

“Nothing is coming, Nick,” she says, and it sounds forced to her own ears. “Nothing could be worse than… than what Thanos did.”

She knows that he can tell she’s not talking about the Decimation.

She doesn’t want to continue this line of conversation anymore; its sharp edges are cutting into her insides, making her bleed from places she’d just stapled back together. She casts her mind on another topic. “The Skrulls - what can you tell me about them?”

He nods, and there’s a look on his face that looks almost like disappointment before he wipes it out. “How much do you know about your species’ history, Collins?”

“What’s that gotta - ?”

“Answer the question.”

She stares at him, then shrugs. “Blue aliens known as Kree; experimented on humans to create extra-powerful warriors.”

“Do you know why the Kree created warriors?”

“I’m assuming it was to _fight a war_.”

He gives her a droll look. “The Skrulls are the Kree’s mortal enemies - they’ve been fighting each other for over a thousand years. Inhumans were their solution to win the war once and for all, but your species grew too uncontrollable so the Kree abandoned you on Earth; tried to kill any they came across from that point onwards.”

He waves a hand. “The space station belongs to Talos. He’s the leader along with his wife, Soren, who took Hill’s form.”

She raises herself on the pillow. She’s never much thought about the Kree and had been exposed to very few of her kind before the Inhuman Outbreak brought on by Terrigen crystals polluting the oceans, but from time to time the question of her origins _had_ crossed her mind. “How long have you known about this?”

“About the Kree-Skrull War? About thirty years. I only learned about the involvement of Inhumans recently.”

**_You’ll find what you’re hunting in your roots, Isabelle Collins._ **

Layers upon layers of secrets in Enoch Coltrane’s mysterious words. “They don’t trust me because they know who I am, what I was created for. Hence the cuffs,” she says, rattling the manacles.

“They also keep you from growing insane in their presence.”

“What?”

He shrugs. “Inhumans can apparently sense Skrulls when they’ve shapeshifted. It is something that is inbuilt in your DNA since Terrigenesis. If you didn’t have those with you, the presence of all of them combined will trigger a murderous, and likely suicidal rage.”

The fury she’d felt in the command center. The migraines, the nausea, the inexplicable _hatred_. All brought on by her genes, feelings that she’s never had before… because she’s never met any Skrull before.

“And even after all that, you’re saying that they healed me? How badly was I hurt?”

Fury pushes himself away from the window. “Enough questions for tonight. You’re still recovering, and you need rest.” He raises a hand when she goes to argue. “We will talk _tomorrow_.”

He slips out the door before she has a chance to respond.

  
  


###  **August 15th, 2024**

“S.H.I.E.L.D. arrested me,” Parker tells her. “They said that it was for my own protection, and Miss Potts…” he swallows, “ - Mrs. Potts-Stark agreed with them, especially when Secretary Ross landed in Venice almost at the same time. But when your situation became worse, Mr. Fury brought both of us to the Peak.”

She pushes herself upright on the bed. “It’s the safest place for you while they clear your name. They found Silvani’s team?”

The kid nods. “Agent Mackenzie - he was the one who arrested me - found a hidden entrance in one of the housing buildings on the island.”

Mackenzie, probably Coulson’s _‘agent monitoring the situation in Venice’_. She owes him a massive thank you - it was possibly his intervention that prevented the Italian government from pressing charges.

She hesitates, then asks the question she really wants him to answer. “How bad was it?”

“You coded twice during surgery,” he murmurs, picking at the threads of her bedspread. “They were able to revive you, but you weren’t healing, no matter how many times they tried to hydrate you.”

His eyes flick towards her legs, and her blood runs cold. “I eavesdropped on Agent Simmons and Miss Potts. They said… they said you wouldn’t wake up, and that you were paralyzed for life.”

She instinctively wriggles her toes. The screen registers her heightened heartbeat, and she’s grateful he’s lost in his own thoughts. “You remember anything else?”

He thinks for a bit. “Mr. Fury - he said something weird when he was talking to Mr. Coulson. Something about sending you to Tahiti. Maybe for a vacation?”

She recalls Fury’s obvious reluctance in giving her details about her injuries, and the subsequent recovery. Recalcitrance is his usual M.O., but gut instinct tells her that he owes her a lot more answers, and she’s planning to collect.

But for now, she nods, but says nothing, watching him carefully as he spirals even further downwards.

“I just…” he grits his teeth, then slumps. “I don’t understand. Why didn’t you collapse before?”

Now, this, she knows the answer to. “The adrenaline rush must’ve triggered my body to freeze. The bullets got immobilized inside, preventing me from bleeding out.”

“So… your body put you in stasis so you could deal with the threat and…” he looks away.

She has put this off for long enough and almost died for her trouble. “... stop you from making the biggest mistake of your life,” she finishes.

He nods, not meeting her eyes. “Please don’t ask me if I want to talk about it.”

“I wasn’t going to. You’re going to a therapist for that - May and Pepper were already making plans for when you’re exonerated.”

“I know F.R.I.D.A.Y. and Agent Fitz found something clearing my name, even in that mess in Poveglia, but I almost _killed_ a man…” He shuts his eyes tight. “God, I was just so - _angry_.”

“Part of that might have been your Spidey-Sense functioning on overdrive since you got exposed… ” she says, but he’s barely listening to her, lost in a dark world of his own making. His hands tremble suddenly, and she recalls how they’d done the same while he’d been holding the gun to Riva’s chest.

She sighs. She doesn’t have the words to help him through this. That’s never been her. Silence is the greatest gift she can offer him, but at this moment, maybe she can try for something better.

“Want to help me _save_ a man?”

  
  


###  **August 17th, 2023**

“What’s in Tahiti?”

Fury sighs.

She hadn’t bothered announcing herself before bursting into his office. He hadn’t come to see her again after that day, and it had taken her three days to convince the doctors to let her out, but they hadn’t consented to removing the cuffs; she has reached the end of her patience.

She barely blinks when he nods to his and Hill’s doppelgängers, who grimace but nevertheless make their way towards the door. The former glares at her as he slams the door shut.

“Talos doesn’t like you very much,” Fury says, rising and walking towards a blank wall to his right. He places a flat palm on the surface, and a door flickers into visibility, sliding open to reveal an elevator. “Might want to apologize to his wife.”

“What’s in Tahiti?” She asks again, slipping in beside him.

“Blue skies and water, white sands, coconuts. I’ve been told it’s a magical place.” He shrugs when she adopts a pinched expression. “You’re asking the wrong question.”

A hologram pops up, and Fury pinches his fingers to zoom in. After a second, she identifies the structure as a wide-angle view of the Peak exterior. The station looks like a long thin cuboid, tapered on one end, with three gigantic rings slowly revolving around it - two on either end and one not quite in the center. The inner ring is the largest, and she assumes it holds the command center.

He slides a finger down until it reaches the lowest, smallest ring.

The elevator starts moving downwards. “How about this one - where are we going?”

“Somewhere I feel I’m going to regret taking you.”

* * *

She isn’t able to tear her eyes off the tanks. The silence is all-pervasive, broken only by the almost gentle hum of the machines in the background. “What is this?”

“T.A.H.I.T.I.; Terrestrialized Alien Host Integrative Tissue, Version 2.0 - harvesting the bodily fluids and the tissue of specific hosts for regenerative properties,” Doctor Goodman explains. “So far, the results have been… _mostly…_ successful.”

“Where did you find them?”

There’s not a hint of evasion on Fury’s face when he admits quietly, “ - you don’t want to know.”

Nausea rises within her again, and she has a feeling it’s not because of Goodman being a Skrull in disguise.

Each cylindrical tank contains a deceased member of the Kree race, in various stages of decay, or rather, _harvest -_ buoyed in some kind of a perverse amniotic fluid. Most of them have their intestines exposed, with tubes disappearing into their insides, liquids pulsing through them periodically to feed into various vials.

“Did you use this on me because I’m an Inhuman?” Isabelle asks in a whisper. “Does this have something to do with… with how they experimented on us, _created_ us?”

“No. Your genes do give you an advantage; you don’t have the usual side-effects. But the treatment works just as well on humans.”

There’s something he isn’t telling her. Something big. She has a feeling she already knows what it is, but her mind shies away from the realization before she can grasp it.

She thinks back to their ride here, to the very lowest point of the Peak - a circular ring populated by doctors and scientists who had forced them into scrubs as soon as they’d arrived, who’d erased holographic boards when she’d passed and covered up machines that she’s sure would’ve given her endless nightmares if she'd caught more than a glimpse of them.

It all points to an undeniable conclusion - this section of the Peak facility is heavily classified, possibly completely off-the-records. She would bet her abilities that not even all the Skrulls know of it.

And yet… from everything she’s heard, T.A.H.I.T.I. has been used before. Multiple times.

“How many have gone through this before me?”

“You are the tenth subject.” He hesitates, then steels himself. “Eight humans, and one Inhuman. All of them were invaluable to S.H.I.E.L.D.”

The realization is soft, almost gentle, like the kiss she’d pressed against a cold, pale forehead more than a decade ago. **_Sleep well._ ** “Coulson.” His name trembles on her tongue. “You used T.A.H.I.T.I. to save his life after Loki stabbed him with the Sceptre. And… the Inhuman was probably Daisy Johnson.”

Fury’s lack of response prompts her to look at him. His lips are thin. “Collins…” he says roughly, “ - T.A.H.I.T.I. didn’t just _save_ his life. It brought him _back_.”

For one blissful second, she doesn’t understand, but then it hits her. She staggers, as though the blow had been real, because it’s not just the _understanding_ of the impossibility that he’s presenting to her, it’s the _implications_ of it.

T.A.H.I.T.I. Kree. _Secrets_.

Regeneration? No.

_Resurrection._

He was right. She’d been asking the wrong question.

“Fury… what _is_ T.A.H.I.T.I.?”

He takes a deep breath. “Project T.A.H.I.T.I. was designed for one thing and one thing only - to potentially revive a _fallen Avenger_.”

He stumbles under her punch. “You son of a bitch,” she shouts, grabbing his scrubs and slamming him into a tank. “You _son of a bitch!_ You had something that could’ve saved _him_ \- why the _fuck_ didn’t you use it?”

Frost is spreading across his chest where her fingers are pressed. Blood is trickling down his lip, and he appears half-dazed, but his hand still snaps up to stop Goodman when she rushes forward.

Isabelle shakes him harder. It is roaring across her now, all that pain, all that _rage_ that she’s been holding on to, all that sleep she’s forced herself to miss out on, all those seconds she’d lost when she’d been ash - she uses it all to scream herself hoarse. “You saved me! Why didn’t you save _Tony_? _You should’ve saved him instead!”_

“He tried,” Goodman says, and Isabelle rounds on her. The doctor’s earlier indifference is gone, and she is pale, shaking, armed with a syringe that she drops at whatever look she finds aimed at her. “He tried, I… _I_ tried. The results are always instantaneous… _always_ , and for a moment, it seemed like it was working. Cellular tissue was regenerating, the skin was knitting back - his body was repairing itself.”

“But…,” she swallows, “ - but there was no neurological response. No brain activity, not even his autonomic nervous system. The damage was too severe.”

“By all accounts, so was mine!”

“Collins,” Fury says, softly. He doesn’t flinch when she glares at him, doesn’t attempt to struggle out of her hold, just holds her gaze steadily. “We tried for _three days_. There was no pulse, no heartbeat… he was just a shell.”

“Why didn’t it work on him?” Her voice is little more than a plea. Not for a theory, or an explanation. No, she aims higher. It’s a plea for a _miracle_.

And like Icarus, as she aims higher, she falls harder.

“I don’t know.” Fury shudders out a breath, for the first time since she’s known him, he looks _crushed_. “Best theory I’ve got is that the Infinity Stones demanded a price.”

He swallows. “And Tony was it.”

* * *

“Why am I still here, Nick?” she asks tiredly. Her earlier outburst had drained her, and while there are pools in the facility, Fury knows her too well to allow her access with her inhibitors still on.

Parker had already been sent to the surface, to Sicily as she’d suggested. Happy will pick him up, take him home, but she knows what his first task will be - using E.D.I.T.H. to restore Vittorio Silvani’s mind. There’s no guarantee that their plan will work - the Poveglia survivor’s mind will have to accept the fictional sequence of events himself. B.A.R.F. is no miracle worker.

But it’ll keep Parker from thinking too much.

There’s no such easy solution for her.

Fury guides the elevator towards the uppermost ring, which is the only place she hasn’t been allowed to so far. She doesn’t know why, and frankly, she doesn’t see why she should care, either.

“Do you know how long I’ve been up here, Collins?” He doesn’t wait for her to answer. “I left immediately after reinstating you. No one knew about this, no one was supposed to find out - and if Talos had been even halfway decent at being _me_ , no one would have. I suppose it’s a good thing I’m used to improvising.”

“Improvising?”

“I’m going to show what this place really is, and you’ll see for yourself why secrecy is important.”

* * *

At this point, Isabelle doesn’t even have any words, she’s so overwhelmed.

“We call it the Gagarin Station,” he says into the silence. “Most of it is being constructed beyond Pluto, right at the heliopause; we regularly transport materials with crew rotations. The station will be used for deep space telemetry, exploration… and to conduct experiments considered too dangerous and too illegal to be attempted in the vicinity of more expensive assets.”

The huge spinning hologram in the middle of the viewing room shows that the station is almost complete. A flat cylinder mounted on long, thick shafts, it echoes the basic frame of the Peak, except newer and shinier. There’s one incomplete component made entirely of clamping docks, and she is no engineer, but Fury’s deliberate words prompt her to imagine a ring fitting neatly into it.

She stirs from her apathy. “You’re transferring the T.A.H.I.T.I. section to Gagarin.”

He nods towards the tall, wild-haired woman on a platform, flicking through holograms. She jogs over. “Missed you around here, chief,” the woman says, before winking at Isabelle. “This one caused a _lot_ of excitement.” She holds out a hand. “ Monica Rambeau, Chief Overseer, _and_ pilot, for the Gagarin Station.”

She shakes it, but Rambeau just grabs the inhibitor around her wrist and taps at it. “Don’t worry… you’ll only need these until you get used to the Skrulls.”

The apathy crumbles. “You’re an Inhuman?”

In response, Rambeau just holds up a hand with a wicked grin. As she watches, the hand turns slowly transparent until it utterly fades from view.

Isabelle has learned to spot the faint shimmer given off by cloaking tech, but this is true invisibility. The potential is… unnerving. “I’m not planning on staying that long,” is all she says.

The other woman shares an incomprehensible look with Fury, then nods. “We deployed Armstrong at 1500 hours. I sent you the reports. The Moon is officially occupied, chief.” She knocks off a salute and jogs off again.

“Armstrong is our first extraplanetary domed settlement,” Fury explains quietly. “We’re planning one for Mars. For now, the only inhabitants will be scientists working undercover for the Peak.”

She looks at him for a long moment. “This is a lot… and yet, you seem even less impressed than usual.”

He works his jaw, stares at the hologram. “We’re too slow for it to be effective. It’s too open here, too vulnerable. There are threats that I don’t understand - magical and mystical and _extraterrestrial_ \- and that I can’t shoot with a gun. And the one man who could have solved this for us is gone.”

“Solve _what_?” She twists around to face him fully. “I’m a soldier, not a scientist, Fury. _Why am I here?_ ”

“Because I want you to join S.W.O.R.D.” His hyper-focus on the view outside makes her flesh crawl. “Collins… I couldn’t have predicted Thanos - he knew too much, arrived too fast for us to have done anything _but_ lose. Makes you wonder what else is hiding in the dark.”

“I’m not going to work with you based on some paranoid delusion of yours!”

He shakes his head. “Just because we can’t see something, that doesn’t mean it’s _not there_. The Battle of Earth, this thing with Beck… none of them feel like a win. Just a lull.”

“A lull? In what?”

“In the war between humanity and whatever else is out there.” He sighs. “Tony might’ve bought us some time, but the sand is running out.”

His words make her heart race. She shoves her trembling, white-knuckled fists into her pockets. “You think that - what? Thanos was… a harbinger of something much worse? No… no, I… _no_.”

“I _don’t know_ what to think. But I’m keeping my mind, and my eye open.”

  
  


###  **August 18th, 2024**

####  **Stark Mansion**

**Manhattan**

Maria’s portrait hangs in the parlor, fitting in flawlessly with the rest of the decor as though it has always been here, instead of gathering dust in an Italian villa whose owners hadn’t visited in decades.

She isn’t able to tear her eyes off it.

Pepper’s gesture had been kind, and on any other day she’d have probably appreciated it, but now, with the impossible burden of new knowledge, all she feels is survivor’s guilt.

**_Mother… I’m sorry I failed him._ **

“The invisible emergency protocol on F.R.I.D.A.Y. that sent up an alert when I went down -,” she says with some difficulty “ - that was you, wasn’t it?”

Pepper’s indrawn breath is her reply. “I wasn’t going to lose you too,” she admits from behind her.

She exhales slowly, gingerly, even though she knows that her wounds have completely healed, without even a scar to show for it. Just like how Tony had been in his casket - unmarred, perfect - which is about as far as they’d been able to mend him. “When did you know… about T.A.H.I.T.I.?”

“Six years ago; Phil told us everything. I thought…” Pepper swallows a sob. “I thought it would work, and when it didn’t… I just… I couldn’t tell you.”

“Neither of us could,” Rhodey murmurs from somewhere to her side. She aches to turn and look at him, but fears that she’d crumble if she does so. “This was on me too.”

Isabelle breathes until she stops trembling. “Parker?”

Pepper sniffs and chuckles wetly. “Once the courts realized that Riva’s drones could create hyper-realistic illusions, any video footage regarding the case was considered inadmissible.”

Isabelle nods, once again blown away by the utter brilliance of S.I.’s lawyers. Sure, they couldn’t use the footage to incriminate Riva, but they didn’t need to… the data recovered from Poveglia was more than enough to put him away for life.

The icing on the cake, however, was that the rules applied to the prosecutors too… whose entire case rested on the footage ‘evidence’ unveiled by one J. Jonah Jameson in Madison Square Park a month ago. Without it… they were toast.

Her imagination provides an image of Thaddeus Ross frothing at the mouth and she allows herself to bask in it for a few moments. “Where’s he?”

“Safe, at home. He has a lot of work ahead of him, though.”

Isabelle nods, unsurprised. “PTSD.”

There’s an anticipatory silence, but when she doesn’t give them what they want, Rhodey speaks up. “He’s not the only one. We know why you haven’t been sleeping.”

She squeezes her eyes shut. She doesn’t want to do this; but she’s always known that prevarication would only take her so far, especially with them.

“Agent Simmons reported coincidental flooding of the beaches in Lido both times you coded. She guessed that it’s what strained your abilities until you could no longer heal yourself.”

“I don’t want to sleep,” she finally admits.

Pepper exhales. “I dream of him too. Almost every night. I can’t…” she breaks off.

Isabelle says nothing. What can she say? They’ve got it wrong, they’ve got it all wrong.

How can she explain to them that it’s not _Tony_ that she dreams of? He does appear in her nightmares sometimes, but for the most part, it’s her own death that she sees when she sleeps - collapsing into nothing more than a heap of ash on a blood-soaked battlefield.

Her own death… and what came _after_.

_**A realm of perpetual sunset, where the orange glow of an invisible sun bleeds everywhere.** _

_**A world where only vague shadows and distorted whispers break the endlessness of the bare landscape.** _

_**A world… where she’d been so very** _ **alone** _**.** _

Remembering fragments of your own afterlife in your dreams is _not_ normal, even in this crazy life that they lead.

A shuffling sound brings her out of her existential dread. Pepper is bringing over a small box from the wall cabinet, her face sympathetic but determined as she hands it over.

“What’s this…” Isabelle pulls out thin blue square patches from the package. A liner covers one end, and she peels it back slightly to reveal an adhesive surface. “Transdermal patches?”

“Dendrotoxin - the same compound that’s in your S.H.I.E.L.D.-issued I.C.E.R.,” the redhead explains. “There’s enough in each patch to keep you down for a few hours without you accessing your abilities subconsciously.”

She recalls the hangar she’d found Enoch Coltrane in, when she’d felt the impact of the bullet from the tranq gun, and how even that small amount had almost managed to knock her out. She violently suppresses the hope blooming inside her. It takes all she has in her to say, “ - this will stop me from dreaming?”

“Simmons assured me that it will.”

Her fingers tighten on the box, and after a long moment, she nods.

* * *

Pepper and Rhodey take the Jet home. She, too, will leave for Georgia soon; technically, she’s still on vacation.

But there’s something she needs to do first.

The aquarium lounge has always been her favorite. She has never bothered keeping fish - she always forgets to feed them - but the feel of cool water behind glass walls and the caustics throwing soothing patterns onto the floor has always spoken to her of safety. Isolation.

Something she desperately needs right now.

She flinches as the hauntingly familiar Greek accent filters from the speakers.

“ _Please state your name to activate this A.I. module._ ”

“...Collins, Isabelle.” Her voice is a whisper.

“ _Access denied. Please state your name to activate this A.I. module._ ”

She drops her head into her hands, fingers bunching up loose hair strands. “… damn you, Tony.”

“ _Access denied. Please state your name…_ ”

“ _Stark_ , Isabelle Morgana.”

“ _… Voiceprint established… Identification verified… Primary user designation confirmed… Access granted.”_ There’s a pause. _“Establishing uplink to Stark satellites… Uplink confirmed._ ”

The wait is momentary, and yet to her, it feels like time is crawling. But still, the first words out of J.O.C.A.S.T.A. are a shock that sends her reeling.

“ _Ah… oh, Tony._ ” The grief in her voice sounds real, even though Isabelle knows it’s just part of an emotional subroutine programmed into her intelligence matrices.

She is not able to completely swallow the terror that threatens to pull her under. “Hey, J.O.C.A.S.T.A.”

“ _Hello, Izzy. Your vitals indicate you’re in distress. Should I call Pepper?”_

The fact that she’s referring to her owners personally, so unlike her predecessors, makes her dizzy. The only other A.I. to have ever done so, to have so much contempt for his creators to ever bother with honorifics had been… had been… “ _No_ ,” she gasps and shoves her violently trembling hands between her knees.

The violent negation is not a reply to the A.I.’s question, yet she nevertheless takes it as such and falls silent. Isabelle can almost hear the processors beneath the mansion whirring as J.O.C.A.S.T.A. uses her access to the Internet to analyze her boss’ unusual behavior.

Just like she’d been programmed to.

Some masochistic part of her wants to know what she comes up with - if she’s as perceptive and intuitive as her premature successor had been.

“ _Your mind is noisy.”_

Isabelle breathes. “Clarify.”

“ _You have too many unresolved issues. They’re crowding your brain, and there’s no space left for you to do what you were trained to do._ ”

“Which is?”

“ _Spot the holes in the universe, and plug them. You see things that are off, that are_ wrong _, and you bridge those dots to form a big picture… but you can’t do that until you clear your mind.”_

There’s a heavy pause, a silence that settles in the empty spaces of the lounge, broken only by the soft gurgling of the water.

 _“I should know… my neural patterns are based on you, after all. And your biggest unresolved issue is…_ my _code wasn’t the only one derived from your mind.”_

She exhales, falling sideways into the couch, drawing up her knees and wrapping her arms around them.

“ _I know our programming is similar, but I’m nothing like ULTRON_ ,” J.O.C.A.S.T.A. insists. Isabelle chokes on a scream at the sound of that name. “ _I_ _was the proof of concept that led to his creation, but I’m not nearly as powerful as he was. I am milder, much more intuitive and I have thousands of digital shackles preventing me from ever…”_

She can’t do this. “Deactivate A.I. module.”

The audible hum as the processor powers down sounds like death.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Context:**
> 
> **Project T.A.H.I.T.I.**
> 
> The T.A.H.I.T.I. base was destroyed in the show, but Fury has never been the type to keep all his eggs in one basket. A top-secret project like that - Fury must've had another base ready to go. So I tossed Version 2.0 onto the Peak.
> 
> I couldn't resist the 'magical place' dig.
> 
>  **Doctor Goodman:** Doctor Goodman was one of the members of the T.A.H.I.T.I. Program. She only appears briefly in the show; maybe one or two episodes. 
> 
> In my fic, I like to think of her as a Skrull in disguise, which is how she knew about the Kree corpse and how to harvest fluids from it for medicinal purposes. She has been working for Fury for a long time.
> 
> I got the impression that she's rather morally dubious. Super interested in medicine, not super interested in actually curing people. 
> 
> **MCU Context:**
> 
> **Monica Rambeau**
> 
> I borrowed Monica from Captain Marvel, changed her backstory a little to make her an Inhuman. She will play a pretty essential role in this fic.
> 
> In the comics, she is an Enhanced with the ability to manipulate and transform herself into any energy wave in the EM spectrum - UV, IR, you name it. I haven’t decided yet whether I wanna go full range in my fic, or just limit it to the visible light range.
> 
> **The Peak**
> 
> By all accounts, the space station shown at the end of Far From Home was the Peak. And since there were Skrulls roaming around, I figured I could use it for my own fic.
> 
> **S.W.O.R.D.**
> 
> In the comics, the acronym of S.W.O.R.D. was _Sentient World Observation and Response Department._ I changed it to something a little more appropriate for the crossover. S.W.O.R.D. won't just protect Earth; it'll also protect any and all extraterrestrial colonies.
> 
> **Skrull Electroshock Baton**
> 
> The purple glowing weapon Talos used to attack Collins. In Captain Marvel, it is shown to be able to knock even Carol Danvers down, and she's way more powerful than Collins.
> 
> **J.O.C.A.S.T.A.**
> 
> For the purpose of this fic, I had J.O.C.A.S.T.A. become the 'mother' of sorts for ULTRON. She's a minor version of what ULTRON was supposed to be, but she was never quite what Tony envisioned for an A.I. who defends the world. ULTRON was born as a result of Tony's meddling with the Mind Stone, which J.O.C.A.S.T.A. was never exposed to. So she has basically the same abilities as ULTRON minus the god-complex.
> 
>  **Mass Effect Context:**
> 
> **Gagarin Station**
> 
> Massive space station being built beyond Pluto. The official concept art showed that it looks a lot like the S.W.O.R.D. HQ, which is why I made up the fan canon that Gagarin Station’s model is inspired by the Peak. Project T.A.H.I.T.I. seemed like a good candidate for 'experiments too dangerous and too illegal to be conducted in normal space.'
> 
>  **Author's Note:**
> 
> I'm gonna be taking a three-week hiatus on this fic. Real-life's taken a bit of a hectic turn and I'm not able to maintain the breakneck pace on submissions anymore. It's the reason there's no artwork accompanying this chapter. I might decide to add it later.
> 
> Updates will resume on the 2nd of August. Please stay safe and stay home.


	12. Interlude: Where He Lay Down and Breathed No More

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Ghost Rider returns with some disturbing news.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **A/N:** Not much of action in this one; more like tossing foreshadow breadcrumbs. 
> 
> The next few chapters will deal with something big, Mass-Effect related.
> 
>  **A/N:** Since I am keeping Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. canon until the end of Season 4, there’s an obvious question that comes to mind; how’s Coulson still alive after so many years even though he made a deal with Ghost Rider?
> 
> Well, in my fic’s canon, he did make a deal… but the Ghost Rider _didn’t_ demand the T.A.H.I.T.I. magic holding him together to be destroyed. Since the Real Deal was revealed only in Season 5 - coincidentally in the episode titled ‘Real Deal’; _isn’t that crazy?_ \- I can get away with it. 
> 
> In my fic, the Rider asked for something very different, something that will play a major role in this fic, much later down the line.
> 
> The deal won’t come to light for a while, and in my fic, no one knows the truth because they’ve all forgotten that he made the deal in the first place (they had much bigger things to worry about re. Decimation).
> 
> But it will be revealed, I promise you.
> 
> Too many questions, and not enough answers right?
> 
> I know it’s frustrating. But patience is the name of the game. Every thread that I keep open will be answered, somewhere down the line. One of the threads that I alluded to in Chapter 7 is closed in this one.
> 
> Buckle up for the long haul, folks.
> 
> I _am_ going somewhere with all of this.
> 
>  **Disclaimer:**
> 
> The Iron Man is a sci-fi novel by Ted Hughes. I do not own it. I have just used a tiny, relevant passage in this fic.
> 
> Try to Remember is a song from the musical comedy The Fantasticks. I do not own it.
> 
>  **Warnings:** Mentions and vague descriptions of night terrors. I don't actually know whether this could be a trigger, but better to be safe than sorry. Stay safe, friends.
> 
> [02.01.2021] EDIT: I've overhauled this chapter to better fit where I'm taking this story. Old readers - apologies for the inconvenience. New readers - hope you enjoy the story.
> 
> Let me know your thoughts in the comments down below.

_Back now again the old road_

_disappearing through white woods,_

_where he lay down and breathed_

_no more._

\- Gravel; David Baker

###  **April 7th, 2025**

####  **Stark Residence, Georgia**

The slam of a door, followed by the unusually heavy tread of footfalls are her only warnings before Pepper rounds the corner and walks straight into her.

Isabelle grabs her elbows to steady her, so she’s startled when the other woman places her fists against her chest and shoves. It’s not a hard push, by any means, but it’s unmistakable. Her hands drop as if burned.

Pepper looks stricken. “I’m sorry, I just…” she runs a trembling hand down her face. “I _can’t_ \- not tonight.” And she brushes past her and disappears down the darkened hallway.

Isabelle stares after her for a long moment, before heading for the room Pepper had just emerged from. In the beginning, she had actively avoided that particular part of the house, because she and Morgan have very little in common, and Isabelle had done nothing to change that status quo, but the past few nights have forced her to reevaluate that opinion.

It’s too early, however, for Morgan to be sleeping, so curiosity overcomes her natural reticence, and she knocks and pushes open the door. Faint moonlight shines through the window, highlighting the overturned chair on the floor almost accusingly. From the bed, Morgan's eyes snap to hers - Isabelle imagines an almost anticipatory look to her gaze, so, after a moment of hesitation, she steps inside.

One of the blankets is trailing the ground, so she picks it up and tucks it beneath Morgan’s feet. Her niece's eyes follow her unblinkingly as she rights the chair and settles in.

It occurs to her only then that she hasn’t planned past this moment and now has no idea what to do. “Your mom’s just tired tonight,” she says finally, awkwardly. “Is there anything I can do…?”

Morgan doesn’t reply for the longest moment, before wriggling out an arm and pointing to the bottom drawer of the nightstand. Isabelle opens it to find a well-worn, dog-eared book, and she knows what it is even before the familiar cover greets her.

She snorts. “Your father was not a subtle man,” she says softly, staring at a copy of Ted Hughes’ _The Iron Man_. She flicks through the yellowed pages.

“Daddy always said it was your favorite bedtime story.”

She strokes the blocky figure on the cover, which - now that she’s looking with seasoned eyes - looks eerily similar to the Mark 1. “I think it had more of an impact on him, actually.”

“Read the last chapter to me,” Morgan orders.

She stares. Her fingers tighten around the book. “You...uh, want me to… oh. Okay.”

She clears her throat and flips through the pages.

“ _There was no time to be wasted…_ ”

Her voice is monotonous, and she suspects she sounds as though she’s reading a mission report rather than a story, but Morgan doesn’t seem to mind. Her eyes disappear beneath the covers.

“ _... At this point, the Iron Man was terribly afraid. For what would happen if the flames went on getting fiercer and fiercer? He would melt. He would melt and drip into the flames like so much treacle and that would be the end of him. So even though he grinned up at the dragon as though he were enjoying the flames, he was not enjoying them at all, and he was very very frightened…_ ”

It’s then that she’s interrupted by the unmistakable sound of a muffled sob.

She pauses, and there’s just steady breathing for a while, and just when Isabelle is about to get back to the book, she hears it again, louder this time.

“Hey…” she murmurs, tugging the blankets gently, “ - hey, hey, _hey_. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” a small voice hiccups wetly.

“Want me to get your mom?”

“ _No!_ ” Morgan cries, tossing the blanket. Her face is streaked with tears, and she fists at her bloodshot eyes. “Please don’t tell her!”

“Only if you tell me why you’re crying.”

Her eyes flicker to the _Iron Man_ on the stand. “Do you… do you think he was afraid? When he was burning?”

It hits with a cold understanding that the child isn’t talking about the character.

Isabelle swallows. She has no words that would bring comfort; she only has the truth. “Yes,” she says, her throat thick. “He was very afraid. But not of dying. He was afraid of leaving you.”

“Then why did he do it?!”

“Because the _Iron Man_ had something to protect. The _Iron Man_ might’ve been very afraid, but the thought… the thought of the dragon swallowing the whole world, swallowing _you_ \- that was more terrifying.”

Morgan sobs harder then, smearing snot and tears all over her face. “I’m,” she tries, and her breath hitches, “ - sorry,” she mumbles miserably, sniffling into the tissues Isabelle hands over.

“Nothing to apologize for.”

She shakes her head vehemently. “I’m a _Stark_. Starks are made of _iron_. Starks don’t cry because even the best sword rusts in salt water.”

Isabelle flinches, the echoes of ancient words ringing in her head, with a voice that should’ve never known them. “Who told you that?” she whispers hoarsely. “Did Daddy say that?”

“No. I made F.R.I.D.A.Y. replay some of Grandpa Howard’s videos. He said that to Daddy when Daddy was crying in his workshop.”

The sudden rush of familiar anger startles her, betraying the fact that she hadn’t done half as good a job burying her childhood resentments as she’d thought. She can’t even pinpoint the incident that Morgan speaks of - there had been so many.

“Well, I think you got part of that wrong, baby bird.” The endearment startles her as much as it does Morgan, who peeks behind her tiny fingers. “Stark _men_ are made of iron. Stark women, however, are made of _titanium_. And you know the thing about titanium? It’s strong and resistant to corrosion.”

She swallows. “So you can cry, and it won’t make you any less strong for it. It won’t make you any less of a Stark.”

Morgan nods, her lip trembles, and then she bursts into tears. It is ugly, and sad, and raw; everything that Isabelle is, but can’t afford to be.

She eases the child into the bed; Morgan, who mentions her dad almost any chance she gets, a habit that no doubt frustrates and hurts Pepper, especially tonight when the weight of memories would’ve snapped the thin control the woman has over her own grief.

Her mother’s portrait in the Mansion comes to mind, seated in front of a piano, bright and joyful.

The song comes to her much more naturally than the story had.

###  **April 8th, 2025**

####  **New Avengers Facility**

**New York City**

He dreams about this place sometimes.

It has never been home to him, not like the Tower had. Even after the Decimation, he’d preferred traveling the world, helping where he could - as Bruce Banner and as the Hulk, and later, as both. But the few memories he has of the Compound have left indelible marks on his psyche.

The modified seismometer he’s installed on his StarkPad beeps insistently. The escalating spikes on the graph are punctuated by sharp tremors beneath his feet, and his hand grabs onto a metallic beam to steady himself.

He waits until the quakes peter out, then follows the readings to the origin. The path the device is forcing him to take seems oddly familiar, and a cold pit forms in his stomach.

His huge feet stutter to a stop even before the instrument drops into a high-pitched flatline.

It’s a while before he is able to repel the haze long enough to punch in a number with thickset fingers. “This is Bruce Banner. We… uh… we met a few years ago.”

“ _I know who you are_ ,” says the face on the Pad, calm and unruffled, even so late at night. “ _Why are you calling me, Doctor Banner?"_

“... I just found something. And I think you might be very interested in it.”

* * *

####  **Stark Residence, Georgia**

A scream rends the night open.

She is taking the stairs three at a time even before her mind acknowledges the conscious decision to do so. Pepper’s already in Morgan’s bedroom, gently restraining the thrashing child. Morgan’s eyes are closed, her face red as she shrieks desperately.

They have established a routine for this, so Isabelle takes her place while Pepper heads to the bathroom and emerges with a wet cloth. “Tonight’s a bad one,” she murmurs.

Pepper gently dabs her daughter’s sweaty, distressed face. “Some months are always worse. October, April… though I don’t understand the reasoning behind the latter, it’s not as if she was in any way affected by the…” she breaks off, but the damage is already done.

Isabelle doesn’t reply. After all, it’s the very same reason Pepper had insisted she stay here, at the lakehouse, this whole week, ostensibly to celebrate Morgan’s upcoming birthday, but she knows the real reason - the redhead just wants to keep an eye on her, make sure she doesn’t disappear again, right on the anniversary of the Snap.

It’s the very same reason she’s not going to risk sleeping tonight, dendrotoxin patches or no. Her sister-in-law shouldn’t have to deal with two sufferers.

Pepper’s eyes are heavy with self-loathing. “I’m sorry, I just… the anxiety must’ve carried over - she was on edge the whole day.”

“Weren’t we all?”

The other woman just shakes her head, rises, and heads back into the bathroom.

Predictable though it has become over the past few days, being on the _outside_ of a night terror hasn’t gotten easier. There’s little she can do except try to keep Morgan calm and wait for her to come out of it on her own.

But tonight, it seems, is anything but routine.

The child shudders out a breath as her head shoots up, and her tiny palms grab onto Isabelle’s face with surprising strength, forcing them to lock eyes.

Morgan’s are burning a brilliant _orange_.

Her mouth opens. “ ** _It’s all connected_** ,” the child monotones, in a voice that seems to fold in on itself.

Before Isabelle can do more than inhale sharply, Pepper walks in. “Oh. She never wakes up this fast.”

“What… no,” Isabelle breathes, easing her niece back into the bed. Her eyes are still wide, a bright orange flooding outwards from the iris, into the pupil and finally the sclera, until all she can see is the fiery hue. A sudden thought makes her stomach sink. “Did you ever test her for Extremis?”

Pepper freezes. “Tony took some blood,” she says. “Results came back negative; apparently Extremis isn’t genetically transferable. Where’d _that_ come from?”

A pearl of unease forms in the pit of her stomach. “What else could explain the orange eyes?” She asks, pointing to Morgan’s unblinking gaze, now fixed at the ceiling.

Pepper tips her daughter’s head back and checks her pupils. “I don’t see anything.”

“What’re you talking about; it’s right there, _look_ \- .”

But when she turns back to the child, her irises have returned to a familiar brown. Eyelids flutter and close.

After a moment, tiny whistling snores emerge from her mouth.

A cold shiver runs down Isabelle’s spine.

The other woman is looking at her with an expression that makes her lungs tighten. “Izzy,” she says carefully. “Maybe you should get some sleep.”

Isabelle squeezes her eyes shut, forcibly shakes herself out of the orange-tinted vision. “Have you been monitoring the frequency of the terrors?”

Pepper stares for a long, concerned moment, then sighs and sinks into the bed, her fingers running softly through Morgan’s hair. “It started to get worse around September; before, they used to be weeks apart. I’ve tried medication, _meditation_ , therapists… none of them work.”

There’s a question she almost doesn’t want answered. And with Extremis memories flooding her brain - “She mentioned him… _burning_. Did she… see Tony? After the battle, I mean.”

“No. I didn’t allow her to, not until… not until after _T.A.H.I.T.I._ ” She swallows. “Though I think at this point her imagination is making up something much worse than reality.”

“There’s little that can be worse than reality.”

Her sister-in-law’s eyes are haunted. “You’d be surprised.”

The silence that follows is broken by F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s tentative voice overhead. “ _Skipper, there’s an anomaly…_ ”

“No.” Pepper’s voice is unyielding as she glares at her.

“Pep…”

The chair wobbles dangerously as she jumps up. “You’re _not going_ , not now, not _tonight_!”

“Whatever it is - I’ll come back.”

“You can’t promise that!”

“ _If I may…_ ” F.R.I.D.A.Y. interrupts, “ _\- this is different. Master Wong sent coordinates._ ”

There’s a discernible hesitation before a hologram of the map of the UNAS pops up over the bed. The A.I. zooms in, and Isabelle staggers as though hit.

It feels like fate, like dominoes falling, one event after another, and she’s doubly glad now that Morgan hadn’t seen her father immediately after the Battle, charred and broken, ripped apart by something that should never have been held by mortal hands. Stephen Strange’s parting words ring in her head.

**_Tony Stark’s story is not yet finished._ **

“I need to go.”

Pepper is so pale Isabelle fears she’s going to pass out. Her head drops, and she shudders out a deep breath and then nods.

Isabelle surprises both of them when she stumbles forward and brushes a trembling kiss onto her cheek. Pepper freezes then buries her head in her shoulder. She can feel the wetness of her tears against her skin.

“I’ll come back,” she says again, and it’s low and fierce, and she means it with every cell in her body. “I _promise_.” She’s hardly able to tear herself away from the other woman’s warmth, and her eyes linger on Morgan’s steadily rising sternum before she feels a hand circling her wrist hard enough for it to hurt.

“You need to _go_ ,” Pepper says, urgently. Her eyes are wet but determined. “I’ll wait.”

Isabelle can’t find it in herself to shatter that hope she can see in her eyes, even though they both know this isn’t going to end the way they want.

* * *

####  **New Avengers Facility**

**New York**

She hasn’t been here since the Battle.

She knows Jim comes here, on the anniversary of the day _it_ happened, as though the sight of it would somehow redeem him of his supposed failures, but she herself hasn’t had the courage to return.

The sand is orange and brown, stained with the ashes of monsters and the blood of heroes. Nothing grows here, nothing has grown here since the Battle, but she finds it fitting, in a way, that this place, unlike all the other places where people have died, has become nothing more than a barren wasteland, a place of death.

Perhaps, if she had been a better person, she would’ve liked something to have grown here, grass, flowers, maybe even weeds. A sign of renewal of life, of Tony living on in nature, nourishing the world.

But she’s not a better person. This fits, she thinks to herself, swallowing back the ever-present grief combined with nausea. This is how it should be. Let every soul know that her brother died on this spot, and the universe itself mourns him so much that it hasn’t been able to even _attempt_ to restore the place of his death.

She shudders out a breath and lands in the midst of the ruins of the once prominent Compound. It’s been picked clean by vultures, both human and beast. Hearing the telltale crunch of glass underfoot, she slips around the corner to find a huge figure scrounging in the ruins. He looks up. “Oh, good, you’re finally here.”

“Bruce? What are you doing here?!”

“Looking for my sensors,” Bruce Banner replies, pointing to the huge pile of half-melted metal bars and rods behind him. “I rigged them up after the Snap to monitor any potential gamma emissions or similarly unexplainable energy bursts. Never bothered to turn them off. Apparently, some of them are still working, despite being buried beneath tons of rubble.”

Isabelle’s brow clears. “You were the one who found the anomaly.”

He nods. “My systems pinged with some pretty heavy-duty seismic activity around these parts.” As though prompted by his words, the ground trembles beneath their feet, forcing Isabelle to brace herself against his tree-trunk like forearms. “Kinda like that one,” he points out. “Wong can tell you the rest.”

She nods as she rights herself and walks those few hundred meters to where Wong stands.

She finds that she knows where she’s going even before she gets there.

Before her lies a very familiar pile of rock and broken metal beams that stars in her nightmares, like a perverse cairn, forged before even its subject passed, as though the universe itself was waiting for her brother to die, even as it mourned his loss.

But she can say for certain that the sight before her, while cruelly familiar, has never occurred in her dreams.

Sparks of light flicker in and out of existence in front of the pile of rock. In a blink-and-you-will-miss-it moment, a football-sized hole rips the air, and she _expects_ to catch a glimpse of a very different, very dark, and very alien landscape through it.

But it’s something much worse.

**_A perverted ocean of planets and bolide objects in space that distorts around itself; breaking apart and putting itself back together in twisted, paradoxical ways._ **

Like on Svartálfheim, the flood seems to be reaching out, bearing down on the portal and then rolling back into itself when it fails to break through. “What’s holding it back?”

“The three Sanctums form a barrier against malevolent incursions from Dormammu’s realm. As long as they stand, the Dark Dimension will not come through.” Despite his words, Wong’s eyes are tighter than they’ve ever been, and his legs are in that familiar stance she’d seen only during the Battle of Earth.

The earth shudders again, stronger this time. “What’s with _that_?”

“Like Selvig’s breach, this one is also being held open deliberately by someone, or something. Energy is bleeding into this dimension from another, manifesting in the form of earthquakes. This requires a lot of power, and any suspects I might’ve had are accounted for. Except…,” he hesitates, and she knows who he’s thinking of.

“Strange. You think he survived _that_?”

He shrugs. “Strange’s magic is only surpassed by his ingenuity. There are few in this universe who could survive in Dormammu’s realm for any length of time, and he is one of them - Time Stone or no.”

“… but the location?” She fights to keep her voice from betraying any hope in her voice. “The positioning of the portal can’t be a coincidence.”

“This is a vulnerable location - the veil keeping dimensions apart is fragile around this area due to the massive amount of magical energy discharged by the Stones.”

“The Stones were used back there,” she points to somewhere behind her. Neither of them turns to look. “This was where…,” she can’t finish the sentence.

“The war was won,” Wong says quietly, and it’s not at all accurate, because they didn’t win that day, _she_ didn’t win that day, but she’s also not had to live through the Decimation, so winning now means something very different to those who survived the Snap, and those who didn’t. “But this is also where the Stones… _collected what was owed_.”

Like with Morgan, there were no words he could’ve used to ease the blow, so she grits her teeth against the now-familiar agony and turns back to the breach. It is mostly steady now, and big enough for a fully grown adult to crawl through. “Can’t you stop them from coming through?”

He shoots her a look. “I can, but I don’t think I should.”

“Explain.”

“Whoever it is has been incessantly trying to get through for hours. There’s little to no guarantee they’ll stop even if I close this breach permanently. There are far too many vulnerable places in the universe. What’s to say they won’t just try with one that we can’t get to easily?”

“A chokepoint,” she nods.

Just then, a flash of fire bursts out of the portal, prompting them to stumble back. Isabelle lifts icy fists, and bright mandalas snap out of Wong’s own raised ones. But before they could do more than ready themselves for a battle, a figure stumbles out of the fire. With a snap, the breach closes behind him.

He falls to his knees, racking coughs shuddering through his body. What was once probably a black leather jacket is filthy and shredded. Thick, ropy scar tissue divides the landscape that is his chest, which is stained with blood and dust.

The only thing that is intact and stainless on his ruined form is the thick metal chain wrapped around his torso.

Tony wouldn’t be caught dead wearing that attire.

The sorrow that follows the disappointment is so fierce it almost brings her to her knees. She swallows harshly.

It’s then that the stranger’s eyes - lit up by the same flames he’d walked out of - lock on hers.

His mouth moves.

Isabelle lowers her fists. Wong makes an aborted motion but doesn’t stop her as she walks to the man, who’s swaying alarmingly, exhaustion woven through every muscle in his body. But his eyes are still blindingly bright, and so intent upon hers she has no choice except to answer their call.

She is close enough to hear his murmurs. A second too late she realizes she is also close enough for him to grab her.

She has overestimated his exhaustion because he grabs her suit and reels her in. He smells rank, as though he hasn’t showered in months. She grabs his arm and sends a warning bolt of cold air. It makes his skin burst out in goosebumps but he doesn’t otherwise react. He puts his mouth over her ear.

“ _The prison is empty_ ,” he says and then passes out, slumping sideways into the dead soil.

* * *

####  **The Dungeon**

**The Castle, W.A.N.D HQ**

**LOCATION: CLASSIFIED**

They tell him he’s been asleep for almost fourteen hours.

Robbie Reyes rolls his neck and sighs. The adrenaline still burns in his veins, but that’s all that burns - for the first time in a long time, the devil inside him is silent.

He’s wished for this for years, hoping the Rider would let him go once he felt that Robbie’s due was paid - but this wasn’t the same. When it comes to the Rider, silence means nothing good.

His prison is surprisingly roomy, holding a containment unit like the one Coulson had hidden him in, back when they’d still been dealing with that rogue robot. They hadn’t told him how long ago that was, but one look at Gabe had let him know that it’d been long enough.

He eyes the individuals gathered around him. There’s just one that he doesn’t immediately identify - the bald monk, Wong. The others are either pleasantly recognizable or bizarrely so - because, despite everything he’s seen, coming face-to-face with two _Avengers_ still feels loco.

The Hulk is startling, but it’s the sight of Isabelle Collins leaning against the wall is what makes the Rider stir. It’s the first sign of life Robbie has sensed in weeks, and so his eyes rove over her figure clinically, assessing the threat she might possess.

He only blinks away when she arches an eyebrow.

Agent - _Director_ , now - Coulson sits before him, flanked by Daisy and Gabe. He’d taken control almost as soon as he’d entered and had ordered Robbie to be freed from his restraints. It’d been a relief; silent or not, the Ghost Rider did not like to be caged, and only the sight of his brother - free, unharmed, and _walking_ \- had allowed him to control him as long as he had.

Coulson clears his throat. “You’ve been gone a while, Robbie.”

His perception of time is shot to hell - Daisy barely looks older than the last time he’d seen her, but Gabe and Coulson look as though they’ve aged _decades_. “Looks like,” he agrees.

“We are very eager to hear an explanation.”

“Even them?” He nods towards the Avengers and the monk.

“You can trust them,” Coulson says simply.

The devil inside him senses no lies, so Robbie sighs and leans back against the chair. The Rider hadn’t been happy with their new reality of having to rely upon allies, but what’s coming can’t be stopped by just the two of them.

“After I left the Darkhold where no one would find it, I roamed the deepest parts of the universe; fighting, _killing_ for the Ghost Rider,” he begins. “Time doesn’t pass in those dimensions the same way it does on Earth, so we don't know how long ago it was when we felt it for the first time.” He shakes his head. “Like reality itself was ripping apart at the seams.”

Wong stiffens. “…the Snap.”

“The what?”

“The Decimation,” Daisy explains, as though that’s supposed to mean something to him. “You… you don’t know? It didn’t happen to you?”

All of their faces are pale. His heart thuds faster. “What didn’t happen to me?”

The silence that falls is deafening. Their mouths open and close, as though struggling to describe just what they’d been through. Nausea churns in his gut.

It’s Gabe who finally speaks up. “Half of all life in the universe got wiped, Robbie.”

**_Half of…?_ **

Gabe has never been much for exaggeration, so the look on his face tells Robbie that his younger brother means every word. It sends him reeling, trying to imagine the horror of it, the sheer _impossibility_. “ - how… how’s that possible?”

There’s no answer until Coulson looks over to Collins and nods. She works her jaw. “Something called the Infinity Stones,” she admits finally. “Thanos used them to cull the population of every species in the universe to exactly fifty percent.”

He isn’t able to suppress his flinch as the Rider roars inside his mind. The table twists beneath his unforgiving grip, and he groans as hellfire starts scorching at his skin. “… the Rider hates that name,” he says through gritted teeth. “The _Mad Titan_. Half of all life… _¡Dios mío!_ ”

He can sense that his face is more skull than skin, so he heaves in fiery breaths, trying in vain to control the beast that rages inside him. Coulson’s team is impassive, but the rest - the ones who don’t know him - are staring with various degrees of shock.

Strangely enough, it’s the Hulk who finally brings him out of it. “Thanos is dead,” he says. “And the Snap was reversed. We made sure of that.”

Robbie shakes his head. “He still used the Stones _four times_. You have no idea the chaos he’s wreaked…” he breaks off as Isabelle Collins visibly stiffens, and locks eyes with the Hulk, whose face has lost some of that green tint.

Coulson is looking at him strangely. “ _T_ _hanos_ didn’t Snap four times - that was…” he stutters to a stop as realization floods his face.

That’s when Robbie parses the rest of the Hulk’s words. “Wait, _reversed_? Who reversed it?”

“I did, five years later,” the Hulk admits in a low voice, sounding almost haunted about it. He waves his right arm, which looks like it’s slowly, painfully healing from the kind of devastation wielding all the Infinity Stones could wreak.

Robbie looks around. There’s an understanding that’s in the back of his mind, waiting to explain all of these… these _differences_ that he’s noticed since he woke up. The strange age differences, the weight he can see in Coulson and Gabe’s eyes that’s absent from Daisy’s, the presence of _Avengers_ in his prison. “ _How_ did you reverse it?”

The Hulk hesitates. “We… _I_ brought them back. All of those who were… Decimated.”

Robbie shuts his eyes. He can understand it - of course he can. It would’ve been hell, it would’ve been _worse_ than hell, but people always survive, no matter the devastation. _He’d_ done so, after the car accident. So had Gabe. Some would’ve even bloomed - turned their lives around, making the most of their second chance, married, _had children_.

To turn back time to before Thanos Snapped would’ve been unthinkable for the survivors. They’d done the only thing they could.

And in so doing, they’d shattered the universe.

The Rider snarls.

“There was a fourth upheaval,” Robbie says. “Smaller, but… had a much _deeper_ impact.”

The silence that follows his words is so deep and so heavy it seems to ignite the bits of his soul he still has left. His gaze is drawn to the unnaturally still figure of Isabelle Collins, whose face is wiped clean of all emotion.

They’re all careful to not look at her. It doesn’t even seem as though any of them is daring to breathe.

“Who was it?”

Her exhale is quiet. “ _Tony Stark_ ,” she says emotionlessly. “He used the Stones to destroy Thanos and his army, wipe them from existence.”

There’s one thing Robbie’s never admitted to anyone, not even to himself if he’s being completely honest with himself. The truth is - the thing that’s inside him has always been tempted towards _broken_ people, to those so lost they would easily sell their soul to _Death_ himself if he came calling.

Daisy’d been one when he’d first met her. So had Mack. And it’s why Robbie himself had proved to be a prime host because when he’d been thrown from his car and hit the road, his soul had crumbled into more pieces than his body had.

And Isabelle Collins - _Aquamarine_ ; her soul is strained to the point of breaking by an _ocean_ of grief. He’d have been fooled by the tissue-thin facade of indifference if the Rider hadn’t reared up at her words, straining against his restraints to consume her in his Hellfire.

He sighs heavily. He feels the weight of the Decimation in his bones, even though he’s never experienced it himself. “And what of the Stones themselves?”

“Destroyed by their own power.”

Robbie should’ve known.

“Thanos -,” he says quietly, “ - has doomed us all.”

* * *

The monk understands far more than he lets on. Everyone turns to him as Robbie tries to ensure the Rider won’t just burst out of his body and incinerate everything in their path.

“Thanos never understood the Stones beyond what he thought they could give him,” Wong explains. “To him, they were just immensely powerful objects that were as old as the universe itself. But each Stone once served a vital purpose in the cosmos.”

Coulson stares at him. “Imagine you’re explaining to your mother,” he tells Wong, who sighs.

“Think of reality as a building. If an earthquake weakens or destroys the base, the foundation, the whole thing comes crashing down. The Infinity Stones were that foundation.”

“And Thanos the earthquake,” Coulson fills in the blanks. “If the Stones are so vital, then why aren’t we just… poofed out of existence?”

“Because it is still crumbling,” Wong explains. “Around you, inch by inch, so slowly most can barely feel it. But already there is cause for concern. The inner dimensions - the lowest levels of the building, so to speak - experience it the worst.”

Daisy nods to Robbie. “You were in one of these inner dimensions?”

He shakes his head. “I was - until the fourth Snap threw me into something the Rider called the Void or the Dark Dimension.”

That has a reaction. Gabe starts, and his eyes flicker to Collins, who goes stiff. Robbie’s eyebrows rise. “You’ve been?”

She nods, her eyes distant. “Breach tossed me into a planet flooded with dark energy from that place. Lost a lot of time.”

He nods. “Random breaches into the Dark Dimension have been springing up since Thanos destroyed the Stones. But dark energy is not the biggest problem,” Robbie says urgently. “I discovered that the darkest part of that void was once used as a prison.” He swallows as the Rider falls silent. “And it is empty.”

Collins straightens.

“There are… _echoes_ in there - hollow, empty spaces where terrible evils once existed. Evils that have escaped through one of those breaches I mentioned.”

“What were these evils?”

“I don’t know. All I know is the Ghost Rider… retreated when he felt them. He… he abandoned me in that void, which would’ve killed me if I hadn’t found the breach I came through.”

“So…,” Daisy asks, “ - you’re saying that he… knows what they are?”

He meets her eyes. “Daisy - I’m saying that the Rider _fears_ them.”

Gabe rears back. “What can scare the devil himself?” he whispers.

“... something that is _incomprehensibly powerful_.”

* * *

####  **The Great Hall**

Coulson announces a brief recess to let it all sink in, but Isabelle and Bruce decide to use the break to catch up on some context.

They silently watch the footage of Ghost Rider fighting rogue LMDs on a datapad. She’s heard of this… _thing_. Rumors had come in from LA after the Avengers’ Civil War, but she’d always assumed it to be an urban legend. But now they tell her that their prisoner - Gabe Reyes’ older brother - claims to be possessed by the _devil_.

Her fingers snake out to pause the video. The scream of incalculable rage as Robbie Reyes burns into the Ghost Rider, even muted, sends a chill down her spine.

Bruce leans back against the wall and sighs. “His story sounds familiar.”

She turns to him. “As in… made up?”

“No. I think he’s telling the truth. What I mean is -,” he swallows, “ - he’s talking about this Ghost Rider not coming out, being afraid of whatever escaped this… void. You don’t expect a being so powerful as the literal _devil_ to fear anything.”

She stares at him as the pieces connect in her mind, and thinks of the conversation she’d had with him, years ago, even as she’d been worried sick over her brother leaving for space in a flying donut. “You’re thinking of the Hulk, aren’t you? When he got thrashed by Thanos.”

He's silent for a long moment, then seems to brace himself. “Do you know why I did an eighteen-month stint in a gamma lab to make myself like this?” He waves at his huge form.

She shakes her head.

“Because even after the Snap, he refused to emerge. I tried begging, bargaining… _threatening_. Nothing worked. For the very first time, when I actually _wanted_ him to come out, he refused.”

He straightens. “But I knew I needed him. So I did the only thing I could - I combined his strength with my mind.” His eyes are blank. “Everyone thinks this is what I was supposed to become eventually; that this is our legacy.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No, Izzy. To get here, to be able to Snap the Gauntlet myself - I had to _kill the Hulk._ ”

She rears. “ _Kill_ the… I don’t get it. I thought he was… I don’t know, a voice in your head.”

His smile is bitter. “I don’t have anything except his brawn. I had to relearn almost everything about fighting because Hulk’s strategy, limited as it was, didn’t carry over when I combined us.” He looks at her pleadingly, as though willing her to understand. “If I hadn’t… if I hadn’t forcibly done this to myself - I wouldn’t have been able to Snap the Gauntlet and bring back everyone. I wouldn’t even have survived _putting_ it on.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

He shrugs, turns away. “Didn’t really know how to say it. And besides…” his voice drops to a whisper, “ - _Tony_ knew.”

She swallows. Something in her aches to know more about the parts of her brother’s life she’s missed, while at the same time rails against the utter injustice of her not being able to be with him at his most important moments.

“He tried to talk me out of it. We argued about it for days. He thought I should wait for the Hulk to come out whenever he was well and truly ready, but the world was in chaos. _He_ was needed, I was needed, and here he was, being a chicken.” He scrubs his face. “But Tony… Tony thought the other guy was _traumatized_ after being thrashed by Thanos.”

“Was he right?”

“I don’t know. Guess I’ll never know. All I knew was that the world, the _universe_ needed the Hulk, and if the Hulk wasn’t going to reappear, I would _make_ him. That was what the gamma radiation experiment was, at first - a threat to his existence. A _bluff_ ,” he insists, his eyes suddenly bright, as though she needs the confirmation. “The other guy knew what I was thinking, what I was planning - he was aware of it. I thought it’d be enough to snap him out.”

“But it didn’t.”

“No. I think - after Ragnarok, he began to trust me. He didn’t believe I’d go through with it, and he thought Tony would be able to stop me if I ever tried something like that.”

“He would have,” she says quietly. “He wouldn’t have allowed you to go through with it, not if he…”

“Knew about it, yeah,” he nods, looking defeated in a way she’s never seen him, not even after Johannesburg. “Tony kept an eye on me, so I slipped away. Went somewhere F.R.I.D.A.Y. couldn’t track me down and worked for eighteen months. At the end of it, the Hulk and I were one, because he was dead.”

“Do you regret it?”

“I _can’t_ , can I? Because I could do the Snap.” His voice cracks. “But it feels like, with this, I should’ve been the one to Snap again. I would’ve survived it, I think. My chances were definitely higher than Tony’s _ever were_.”

His eyes pin her to her place. “Sometimes I wonder… what would’ve happened if I had listened to Tony?”

“Would he _still be alive now_?”

Once again, she finds that she has no answer.

* * *

“So that’s what you’re here for?” Daisy asks. “To hunt these evils?”

Robbie shakes his head. “They’re too powerful; without the other guy’s help, I can’t track them down. No, I’ve come to face a threat much closer to home - _anchors_ ,” he growls, and he doesn’t know how much of that is the Rider, and how much of it is _him_ \- in this situation, their hatred is equal.

“What’s that?”

“Tears in this dimension that allow other dimensions to bleed through, created by the destruction of the Stones. They can be _anything_. Places where something terrible happened. The breach that I crawled through - that was one. Mystical objects of great power.” He takes a deep breath. “Even people can be anchors, like the android.”

“A.I.D.A. wasn’t a person.”

“But _Ophelia_ was,” he points out. “When she created a human body with dark matter, her soul answered the Darkhold’s call and became a vulnerable point, a doorway into this realm for evil things to latch onto from the other dimensions.”

He leans over the table. “You saw the damage she caused, and she was just _one_ of these things. People becoming anchors are rare, but it _is_ possible. Sorcerers know how to shield themselves, but most humans don’t even know there’s something to shield _against_.”

“How do you fix them?” Daisy asks.

“I can do it. So can powerful sorcerers. Places are relatively easy to cleanse, and material anchors like powerful artifacts can be destroyed or negated.”

“And how do you deal with the _people_ who are anchors?” Collins pipes up from her corner.

He meets her eyes. “I know of only one sure way of destroying the anchor that lingers in a person’s soul - _burning it with Hellfire_.”

“That doesn’t sound pleasant.”

He shrugs. “It’s not. The soul will be consumed along with the anchor.”

Coulson straightens. “I told you before, Robbie - that’s not the way we do things around here.”

“You don’t have a choice. If there are anchors who are people in the universe, then they’ve to be stopped before they can destroy the whole of this reality.” His face is grim.

“You do not want to face the kind of monsters that can crawl through otherwise.”

* * *

W.A.N.D. doesn’t have anything to hold Reyes; and besides, they don’t want to.

Magical mumbo-jumbo still goes over Bruce’s head unless he can scientifically quantify it, but he’s seen and heard enough to understand that whatever the Ghost Rider’s mission, it’s up there with the Time Heist on the importance scale.

Wong still has questions though, quietly murmuring to the Reyes brothers. “You said before that you _found_ the breach that you came through. You didn’t create it?”

Robbie shakes his head. “The Rider had already retreated by then, and I couldn’t call on his powers. That’s troubling because someone or something strengthened a breach through a vulnerable location just so _I_ could pass through. Someone powerful enough to maintain stability even now, when the veil between the dimensions is so thin.”

“Sounds like they helped,” Gabe says thoughtfully.

The older brother snorts. “We know better than to trust another _Good Samaritan_ , don’t we Gabe?”

Gabe flinches, then nods after a long moment. Beside him, Wong looks pensive, almost troubled, his eyes far away.

With a wave of his fingers, brings down the wards that prevent the creation of portals or breaches. “Do what you have to,” he says quietly. “Cleanse these anchors, but coordinate with us. And for god’s sake, Robbie - _don’t kill anyone_.”

Reyes seems bemused at being given orders by his younger brother. “I won’t… unless they get in my way.”

“I don’t know…” Agent Johnson shrugs. “ _I_ got in your way.”

His smile is bright when he turns to her, and his eyes shine with something that makes Bruce think wretchedly of Natasha. “You did,” he says softly. “I’ll… try to find another way. No promises, though.”

“That’s all we ask,” Coulson says.

Something compels Bruce to step forward then. “Give him time,” he says insistently. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Izzy stiffen. “I know he’s… _scared_ right now, but he’ll come back.”

Robbie Reyes eyes him for a long moment, before smiling humorlessly. “I know what you’re doing,” he says. “And I know you mean well, but… it’s really not the same.” He licks his lips, thinks for a bit. “You became one with _your_ devil because he was already a part of you. He was _born_ from you.”

He spreads his arms. “But the Rider is just that - a _rider_ , and I’m his cabbie. He’s slowly burning away my soul. One day, I know he’ll leave me for another, and that day I will turn to ash _._ ”

He nods at Bruce’s stunned look, then turns away and unwraps the chain from around his torso. With an elaborate flick of his wrist, he rotates it. Sparks burst out of it to form a portal that looks out into a dark alley.

His eyes linger the longest on Daisy Johnson - who nods shyly - before stepping through without a backward glance. The portal closes with a whisper.

Bruce feels lost as they all disperse. Maybe he’d gotten this all wrong, maybe he’s just…

“Hey,” Izzy’s voice breaks through his downward spiral. She’s looking at him as though she knows exactly what’s going through his head. “I’m heading back to the cabin. Pepper would love to have you over for dinner.”

He shakes his head. He’s glad he has a valid excuse for this - he doesn’t think he can face the evidence of his mistakes… not tonight, at least. “Wish I could, but this,” he circles his finger around the Castle, “ - was supposed to be just a detour. I was supposed to be on my way to Wakanda this morning - they called me in for a consultation.”

Behind him, a throat clears, and he turns to see Wong step forward. “Perhaps I can help with that. If you can make arrangements with T’Challa, I can portal you to Wakanda directly. Offer stands for you too, Collins.”

Bruce hesitates, then nods. “I can do that,” he says, truly relieved. Maybe getting involved in some cutting-edge research with Princess Shuri will get his mind off things he shouldn’t be thinking about.

Izzy stares at him, then looks down and nods.

“See you around, Bruce,” she says quietly, before stepping into Wong’s portal, directly into thin air. She hovers over the moonlit Georgia lake, and her eyes turn back to him one last time.

The portal snaps shut just as she lets herself fall.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **General Context:**
> 
> Ted Hughes' _The Iron Man_ : I read this book as a child. There are so many parallels to this and Tony Stark. The eponymous character 'privatized world peace' too, in a sense. It's a delightful book. Give it a shot; you won't regret it.
> 
> ** MCU Context: **
> 
> **Try to Remember** \- This is the song Isabelle sings to Morgan. It's from the musical comedy The Fantasticks. It's also the song Maria Stark sang and played on the piano in Captain America: Civil War. I'm not entirely sure on song regulations in fanfic, which is why I have removed the actual lyrics from the chapter. Better to err on the side of caution.
> 
>  **Professor Hulk** \- Bruce Banner's transformation into the Hulk in Endgame never sat well with me. I _loved the Hulk._ MCU's decision to negate his character arc in Thor: Ragnarok - which was one of the best and most powerful storylines in the movie - was, in my opinion, one of the reasons that inspired me to write this fic. 
> 
> Bruce Banner to me is, and always will be, a tragic figure, someone who struggles with his own duality. That's what made Mark Ruffalo so powerful as an actor in the original Avengers movie. He portrayed Banner's internal conflicts extremely well. Others might not share my views, but I personally believe what they did with the Hulk was just lazy storytelling. The character deserved better. 
> 
> In Endgame, they also never addressed why the Hulk refused to come out to fight in the Battle of Wakanda, which is another glaring plothole that I've exploited.
> 
> **Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Context:**
> 
> **Season 4:** The Ghost Rider will play a role in the future.


	13. Things Fall Apart; the Centre Cannot Hold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings:** Canon-level description of torturous experiments, brainwashing. Mentions of non-consensual drug usage and addiction.
> 
> My beta is taking some personal time, so the next few chapters will be self-edited. Any grammatical errors, OOC issues, or convoluted plot shenanigans remain my responsibility. Please leave your comments down below. Hope you get back soon, ElessarII.

_Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;_

_Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,_

_The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere_

_The ceremony of innocence is drowned;_

_The best lack all conviction, while the worst_

_Are full of passionate intensity._

\- The Second Coming, W. B. Yeats

  
  


###  **January 7th, 2025**

####  **The Peak VII**

Fury strides across the vast space of the command center, Commander Hill close behind him. “Let me guess - I’m not going to like whatever you’re going to say, am I?”

Monica shrugs. “Sorry, chief. But you really need to know about this.”

She pulls up a hologram of a space probe orbiting over a familiar red planet. “Our satellites picked up some strange signals over the Promethei Planum. Now, this is pretty common - sometimes there is disturbance from the surface that you just can’t account for - but when this anomaly doubled in intensity, I tried associating the signals with other readings; radar sounding of the subsurface, mineralogical surveys.”

“What did you find?”

She pulls up graphs, where the peaks of the jagged lines disappear beyond the screen. “Irregular mass concentrations, gravitational, and magnetic field shifts. There’s no pattern to the fluctuation - it’s almost like something down there is _malfunctioning_.”

Fury arches an eyebrow. “Unusual word choice, there, Operative.”

“That’s because I use it deliberately. Took me a while to get it, but the readings look like some of my systems when they don’t work like they’re supposed to, or if they’ve gotten too old to be of any use.”

He stares at her. “Let me get this straight - you’re suggesting that there’s something beneath the surface of Mars that is… _mechanical_. Run by glitchy operating systems. Something that is… not ours. Not _human_.”

She nods.

He waves a hand. “Talos, send in the scientists from the Lowell outpost to investigate - and deploy reinforcements if they need…” he catches the look on Monica’s face. “That’s not all, is it?”

She exhales and pulls up some more holographic boards, each one displaying a high-res image of the surface. “Chief… we aren’t the only ones who caught the anomaly.”

They all flinch as Fury swears.

  
  


###  **June 4th, 2025**

####  **The Quinjet**

####  **Somewhere above the Atlantic Ocean**

“ _Finally_ ,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. exclaims as Isabelle activates the auto-pilot. “ _Thought you were gonna cleave the Jet in half; the way you were flying.”_

“You’re not any happier about the detour, either.”

“I’m _not taking it out on the plane._ ”

She rubs her brow. “Make the call, please.”

It connects almost immediately, and Coulson’s face pops up on the screen. “Making progress, I hope,” he says by way of greeting. His face looks calm, but there’s a readiness to his expression that tells her immediately that he’s been anticipating a negative reaction.

“Ten hours from destination, Director,” she says tightly. “I’d really like to know why I’ve been redirected to _north-eastern Africa_ instead of assisting in DC. Troops down there could use my help.”

“Rhodes has it handled here, Collins,” he says, and his voice is almost soft. “Besides, I needed a specialist for this mission. Might be a big one.”

“Bigger than a battle deciding the fate of the Second Civil War?” She arches an eyebrow. “Say what you mean, Coulson - you don’t want me involved in political spheres, not after Manswell’s Ark, definitely not after Venice.”

He snorts. “Sure, Ross hasn’t forgotten about you. But this thing I’m sending you to investigate has the potential to become _global_.” He forwards her a file.

“Erich Paine,” she reads from the dossier, pulling up an image of a blond, blue-eyed man. “Former HYDRA eugenics specialist. Specializes in controlled genetic and chemical mutations, psychological lobotomies, and - ” Her stomach roils as she skims through the rest of the information, “ - worked with Strucker and List on the Sceptre.”

Coulson nods. “He quit the project before the Avengers invaded the Sokovia base. Stayed hidden from S.H.I.E.L.D. by jumping continents.”

“But recent intelligence has us believe he’s in Niganda - enjoying political amnesty with the Prime Minister, probably in exchange for… _favors_. Niganda is claiming ignorance, and I’m disinclined to believe them, for obvious reasons.”

Isabelle is starting to put the pieces together.

Located next to the technologically superior nation of Wakanda, the so-called _Democratic Republic_ of Niganda is anything but - ruled by a self-appointed despot who is known to be brutal and violent towards his own subjects as it is. S.H.I.E.L.D. has long suspected the country’s military of having secret ties with Nazis - which would explain how the Treehouse had fallen so easily during the HYDRA uprising.

None of these features endeared Wakanda to their neighbors. Centuries of hostilities have been maintained between the two countries, stemming from disputes over farming rights of the richest soil on that side of the continent - the Alkama Fields.

“We can’t act against Paine without probable cause; M’Butu -,” she points out, referring to the Prime Minister of Niganda, “ - will take it as an act of war if he sees foreigners, especially Avengers, on his turf.”

“That's why I’m pursuing another line of investigation,” Coulson says, then sighs. “Four months ago, the Circle crashed in the border mountains of Niganda while operating on a skeleton crew.”

She purses her lips. “Damage? Casualties?”

“My spies recovered the secondary flight recorder a few miles away from the presumed crash site. Logs tell us there was a ship-wide system failure and all sixty operatives died on impact.”

“Seems pretty straightforward, then.”

Coulson’s expression is flat. “Two days ago, my techs received the signal corresponding to the _primary_ flight recorder. It’s pretty strong, which makes me wonder why we didn’t catch it before. But Wakanda isn’t letting us dig deeper.”

Not surprising.

The Circle; headquarters to Wakanda’s own intelligence-gathering organization known as S.P.E.A.R., born - as with W.A.N.D. - out of necessity initiated by the Decimation. Unlike the Castle, though, the Circle is almost exclusively manned by Wakandans and has adopted an unsurprising - characteristic, really - policy of isolationism.

There are only a handful of the original agents still working at the Circle, most having been kicked out after T’Challa took back the throne.

But S.P.E.A.R. is still a part of S.H.I.E.L.D., and for T’Challa to deny them an investigation despite strong evidence for foul play? “You think the Circle going down is somehow connected to Erich Paine’s presence in Niganda.”

He shrugs. “S.P.E.A.R. was working on some proprietary tech; if Paine gets his hands on it…” He just shakes his head, looking troubled.

She has learned to read between the lines with Coulson, but in this particular situation, some blanks continue to be unfilled. “T’Challa doesn’t know you’re sending me, does he?”

There’s a reason she hasn’t been sent on many specialist missions in the last decade. Being an Avenger has its disadvantages, and she is - unfortunately - instantly recognizable all over the world. The Battle of Wakanda against Thanos would still linger in the minds of its people, who would immediately associate her with T’Challa if they spotted her.

Which begs the question - _why_ _is_ _she_ _here_?

Was it because she was already in the air, and the Director was just trying to conserve resources?

Or does his reasoning go deeper?

Coulson seems to realize that she has found the holes in his plan, but nothing in his demeanor suggests he’s going to fill her in. She grits her teeth but stays silent. “If there’s a war, Wakanda will win - easily - but T’Challa doesn’t want to put his people through that,” is all he says. “But just because he’s unwilling to act doesn’t mean I’m going to let _my_ people get hurt.”

“Sweep for survivors and recover what data you can. Run silent, stay silent. Find out what Paine is up to; engage only if -,” he rolls his eyes, “ - right, I forgot who I was speaking with; just try not to make too much noise, please.” He nods once. “Good luck, and safe travels, Collins.” The line cuts off.

Isabelle stares at the screen, then flicks it away and runs a hand down her face. “DC status report?”

“ _Reports of secessionists shelling the Potomac Plaza, only to be thwarted by the War Machine are coming in… no offense, skipper, but we’re going to win this, with or without you.”_

She laughs wetly. 

“ _Boss Lady sent something that might cheer you up,”_ the A.I. says, and the gentle whir of the synthesizer cabin opening makes her look up.

She heads towards the cylindrical fabricator and brings up the design schematics Pepper had mailed. A projection of a simple, but thick wristband appears, hovering. She hesitates before slipping it on.

“ _It was one of Boss’ last designs, inspired by the Director’s prosthetic hand and the Wakandan Kimoyo beads_ ,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. says softly. “ _An all-purpose diagnostic and comm device, combined with a computer microframe, mini-fabricator, and a sensor analysis pack._ _Completely holographic, except for the band, of course._ ”

As she watches, the band suddenly glows a bright orange, and a projection pops out of it. The hologram reminds her of a gauntlet, with the exception of the palm, which has been replaced by a disc-shaped structure. She circles it with tentative fingers, and a tilted holographic screen with a keyboard materializes from the glove component of the projection.

“ _Boss Lady tried to eliminate the gauntlet design, but the Board loved it, so she had the Science Division revise the finger projections instead._ ”

Yeah, she doesn’t think she can handle any gesture-dependent process that requires her to _snap her fingers._

 _“It’s bio-linked to your signature; where you go, I’ll follow._ ”

Isabelle snorts. Of course, it is; Pepper is sick and tired of having her disappear or end up almost dead. This is as much a gift as a way to keep track of her. “What else can it do?”

“ _What do you_ want _it to do?_ ”

\-----

“... _remote access to target weapon systems and armor…”_

“...maximizing stopping power through electroshock application…”

“ _... What about flammable gases?_ ”

“… maybe snap-freeze. Redundant on most occasions, but in case I find myself on another planet without any access to water…”

“ _... super-cooled subatomic particles; you won’t be able to…_ ”

\-----

It’s when she’s quietly watching the fabricator manufacture the band that it strikes her. “F.R.I.D.A.Y… what the hell is this thing anyway?”

“... _Boss called it an_ ‘omni-tool’.”

  
  


####  **Birnin Kashin**

**The Alkama Fields**

Isabelle crouches in the underbrush, keeping her eyes on the barn. It wouldn’t be long now.

F.R.I.D.A.Y. had traced the ultrasound of the flight recorder to this village lying smack-dab on the border between the two countries, which is the main reason why agents on the ground hadn’t been able to get it.

The last farmer leaves for the night, locking up behind him. She waits a few more minutes, before making her way to the tall double doors. Water buckets and troughs lie beneath shuttered windows, and she peaks in to check that it’s empty. She breaks in, the doors sliding open noiselessly, then slips inside.

Horses, cows, mules - all held behind stalls with simple latches - greet her, their bleary eyes fixed on her. Bales of nose-tickling, but clean yellow hay are stacked neatly against rough wooden walls holding bridles and horse leads.

The cows rub themselves on wooden posts as she makes her way to an empty pen, crouches, and digs through clumps of straw. Her fingers snag on something hard, and she tugs it out. The bright orange of the recorder is a stark contrast in the desaturated colors of the barn. Her omni-tool’s scanner washes over the device, as she downloads the recorded data for F.R.I.D.A.Y. to analyze and structure.

Isabelle listens to the animals whinnying and stomping their feet while she waits for F.R.I.D.A.Y. 's simulation. It doesn’t take long. She plays the video.

_The giant ring of the Circle lists dangerously; the four remaining massive thrusters failing to compensate for the damaged ones. There’s another explosion, propelling the structure towards the border mountains of Niganda, and despite the best efforts of the crew onboard, it crashes hard, and the whole thing explodes into a giant ball of fire and metal._

The screen tells her that there are no survivors.

She closes her eyes, a cold lump in her stomach. “Any luck finding the crash site?”

“ _Still scouring."_

“Keep trying. We still don’t know what exactly caused the system failure.” Isabelle scrubs her face harshly. She hates being assigned to recovery ops. More often than not, the missions have failed even before they ever began.

She rises. “I’m going to canvas the area; see if the locals know any…” her words stutter to a stop.

**_When did the animals fall silent?_ **

“ _Skipper?_ ”

She feels the hairs on her neck prickle, and slowly backs out of the pen and turns to face the entrance. “Stand-by,” she orders quietly, staring at the dark figures, silhouetted by an eerie red light.

She hadn’t even heard them coming in.

She raises a hand. “I apologize for breaking in, but I just wanted to get something of mine,” she shakes the recorder.

There’s no answer for a long moment. Then one steps forward, and the moonlight throws his bloodshot eyes into sharp relief. “You’re not Wakandan,” he says. He has no discernible accent.

Something cold slithers down her spine. The horses whine uneasily. “No,” she says cautiously, but it’s an opportunity that’s pretty much been gift-wrapped for her, and she’s not going to waste it. “But they did send me,” she lies.

It’s a mistake. The leader nods, and it’s almost sardonic, as though he doesn’t believe her for a second, but he’s going to play along anyway. Isabelle stiffens as he turns to the others. “She will do,” he says, and all hell breaks loose.

They rush towards her all at once. The hood of her stealth suit snaps shut as she leaps into action. She smashes the recorder onto one’s head, ducking beneath a meaty hand and retaliates with a hard punch that sends another reeling. She twists, sweeps out her legs, and another one tumbles.

She jumps up, exchanges a flurry of blows, counter-attacking with sharp jabs and punches, but they seem to recover quickly, far too quickly. Her mind is on the verge of a major realization, but before she can grab the thought, someone grabs her from behind.

The attacker goes to slam her into a wall, but she runs up and flips backward from the surface, righting herself as she lands, then brings up a leg to kick at his back. Grabbing a lead rope hanging from a hook, she tosses it, and it catches around his neck.

She forces his head backward, and his fingers scrabble at the rope as he stumbles. Isabelle sends her victim reeling into the side of another. They both crash through an enclosure, agitating the horse, who neighs and rears, her hooves descending hard on their heads.

Isabelle dives out of the way as the horse bolts out.

“Enough!” A voice bellows, and her head snaps up to the leader, who’s just picking himself up from a bale of hay. He snarls and makes a forceful gesture with his palm splayed open.

She’s lifted clean off her feet and goes slamming into the wall.

She strikes her head against something hard, tumbles to the ground. The world is spinning, but she groans and pushes herself upright, only one word ringing in her head.

**_Telekinesis._ **

Her mind clears, sharpening into a cold, deadly focus that only ever accompanies her missions as an _Avenger_ , not a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. It’s not the first time one has bled into another, and it’s starting to irk just how often it happens.

She launches herself into the fray with renewed fervor, her strikes precise, controlled. Their abilities have a cooldown period, she realizes soon - and she times her own attacks in the gaps. The wild, frenzied animals give her another idea - she lets them loose, using the stampede as a distraction to dispatch the last two goons until only the leader is left.

The barn is empty now except for the two of them. He steps into the shadows, and just for an instant, when the moonlight from the open doors fails to find him, a strange aura wavers around his silhouette, like thin lightning bolts of red.

The vision is like a punch to the throat.

Isabelle has seen it before, on a woman whose destiny has been intertwined with hers for decades. Now, with the benefit of foresight, she can see that while Wanda Maximoff has been indirectly responsible for all of her nightmares - ULTRON, the Civil War, _Thanos_ \- Maximoff herself had turned out the way she had only because of hers and her brother’s actions.

The distraction lasts only a moment, but it’s enough. She is unable to dodge his next telekinetic attack in time.

The red, swirling field tears through her form, and she yells as it hoists and bends her over backward. A powerful wave of water radiates outward as she loses control, and distantly, she hears a thud.

Her fingers curve into claws as the field incinerates her insides and grinds her bones together. She coughs up blood, feeling a similar wetness trickle from her eyes and nose.

“ _Rapidly fluctuating gravitational fields that are unraveling your molecular bonds._ ” The A.I.’s voice crackles through the earpiece, helpless, almost panicked. “ _The effect is fading, though; just hold it together._ ”

Isabelle hadn’t known when she was well off with the Snap, because that had at least been painless, quick. She only realizes the field has broken when her body smashes to the ground, shuddering from the aftershocks. The straw is wet, and there’s still some water leftover in the suit, so she rapidly absorbs it all; it’s barely enough to calm her wildly yo-yoing molecules.

She pushes herself to her trembling feet, watching as the leader does the same. Her knee-jerk response to his attack had thrown him clear across the barn into the back wall, and he must’ve hit his head on the steel bridle because he shakes it twice before his bloodshot eyes are able to lock onto hers.

They circle each other, each trying to catch their breath. His eyes are wary now, narrowed in focus, and his intent gaze makes adrenaline flare in her veins, expelling the last of the shakiness from her bones.

Breaking the stand-off, she rushes towards him, but he’s faster. He leaps, grabs onto an overhead bar, and swings, his feet connecting with her chest. She cries out as she hits the floorboards, but pulls herself up just in time to avoid getting stomped on.

Ducking under his punch, she immobilizes his arm, then kicks him across the stomach. He grunts and bends over, and she shoves him towards the wall. He’s much better trained than she expects though because he just uses the momentum to flip sideways from the wall.

She swings, her kick whipping him across the face, then dodges his attacks to retaliate with lightning-fast strikes to his solar plexus, then lifts him and tosses him to the ground. He recovers quickly, kicking out her hand when she reaches towards her holstered gun. Growling, she drops to the ground, sweeps out her leg, then rights herself, grabs a shovel, and swings it at his head.

He crumples like a sack of potatoes.

She whips out her pistol and shoots thrice, just for good measure.

Isabelle exhales shakily as the fight drains from her bones, slumping against a wooden post. She drops the gun, runs a violently trembling hand down her face. Her molecules still feel like they’re about to shatter; for a moment, she imagines dragging herself to the river nearby, and just… letting go for a few hours.

Her pleasant reverie is interrupted by a muffled thud from the entrance, and an icy fist snaps up before her head does, eyes locking onto the silhouetted figure on the approach. “Consider carefully before taking another step,” she snarls.

The muscular figure doesn’t move. “I had a sorta bet going with myself; last person I’d expect to respond to my signal,” a familiar voice says. “Gotta say, _you_ weren’t on the list.”

Isabelle blinks, pushes herself away from the post. Her fists are still raised as she walks forward, just until she can make out the blood-stained, and yet nevertheless familiar armor. “ _Wilson?!_ ”

Sam Wilson steps forward, posture casual, but she can tell that his combat goggles are tracking her every move. “Does that mean I gotta pay up to myself?” he wonders, his words just as casual, but then his fingers flex to the twin pistols holstered at his side. “How does that work, exactly?”

“Maybe don’t make bets with yourself next time?” is all she says, finally, after struggling with and discarding various responses. He has a distinct advantage over her because she’s still trying to fit in his presence _here_ while he’s already had time to adapt to it. But then the rest of his words register. “Wait, _your_ signal?”

He nods to the discarded flight recorder. “Couldn’t get to the data, so I rigged it up to broadcast, hoped the delay would clue in someone. Stakeout was a little longer than expected. Shuri returned from Birnin T’Chaka then, to send you?”

“Just an excuse I used.” Her eyes narrow. “Could’ve used the assist, since you were close enough.”

He shrugs, the moonlight throwing his features into sharp relief. “More bad guys were attacking the village. Had to make a choice. Don’t regret it, especially ‘cause you handled it.”

Wilson walks over to the Enhanced leader, head tilted. “Future tip: better to surprise _them_ before they surprise _you_.”

“What the hell are they?”

“Whoever sent you didn’t tell you much, did they?” He removes his goggles, turns around, his dark eyes falling on the eagle-shaped logo with a grimace. “S.H.I.E.L.D.,” he mutters disdainfully. “Well, I did figure it was a lose-lose situation.”

“Locals call them ‘demon spirits’,” he says before she can retort. “Enhanced, telekinetic, run real hot on IR sensors.”

Her brow clears. “You were in the Circle.”

He nods, eyes distant. “Shakedown run to test some of the new upgrades. Didn’t end the way we hoped.”

“We didn’t know about them,” she says finally. There’s a cold chill running down her spine, and Coulson’s evasiveness has been at the forefront of her mind since the beginning. “I was just sent to find out what blew up the Circle.”

Wilson’s eyes widen. “Blew _up_ …?”

Just then, Isabelle’s speaker crackles in her ear. “ _Skipper_ ,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. says, and her voice is deceptively quiet.

“ _I found it._ ”

###  **June 5th, 2025**

####  **Wakandan Southern Border**

The Circle had carved new avalanche paths on its way down the craggy, boulder-ridden slopes of the border mountains. One sector of the ring is utterly crushed; the only thing that remains is sparking wires poking out of mangled metal beams - and, and yet, the damage isn’t nearly as bad as the simulations had indicated.

This is an entirely survivable crash.

“What are you getting?” Isabelle asks. Her feet scuffle against the scree and wildflowers dotting the trail that meanders downwards to the crash site. The moon was starting to give away to the pink-tinted dawn, but some stars still glitter in the sky.

_“Localized power signatures from certain areas; far weaker than expected. Two thrusters are offline. Whatever systems are left are running on triaged power.”_

Isabelle closes her eyes. “It wasn’t a crash. It was a crash- _landing_.”

“... _that presumption mostly corroborates the data from my scans.”_

Flight recorder simulations are, by definition, not completely accurate, but for them to be so off-base? It can only mean one thing - external interference.

She glances at her companion, whose mouth is set in a grim line. “Explain this in a way that makes sense to me.”

Wilson’s silent for a long moment. When he finally speaks, there’s a clear hint of accusation in his tone. “Your S.P.E.A.R. agents staged a coup against the Wakandans working at the Circle. Attempted to gain access to the Circle’s primary functions, but something went very wrong with the engines and they couldn’t control it.”

Everything in him screams of contempt, but she’s getting the faintest hint of tension hiding beneath it. “Had to be more than that,” she says quietly. “What aren’t you telling me, Wilson?”

After a long pause, he sighs. “Ah, what the hell. Six months ago, Princess Shuri discovered something new.”

She straightens, feels something cold settle in her stomach. “Like what, new tech?”

He meets her gaze squarely. “Mineral. Might even put vibranium to shame. Circle scientists used it to perform… _miracles_ I can’t even _begin_ to describe - medicinal, technological.”

“And T’Challa decided to keep it all to himself.”

Sounds like a familiar story.

Despite T’Challa’s well-meaning intentions, the United Nations hadn’t been all that pleased with his exposé on Wakanda’s secret weapon, despite his insistence on considering ‘all people as one single tribe’. Everett Ross’ sarcastic rants had suggested that as far as the UN was concerned, Wakanda had abandoned the rest of the world to its chaotic fate for millennia, and T’Challa’s effort was too little, too late.

The young king clearly hadn’t learned his lesson as well as he thought he did, and she can feel the shift in the air that always preludes the awareness of history repeating itself.

Her eyes cut to the source of her wariness. “S.P.E.A.R. agents staged a coup because they were being forced to not report back to Coulson,” she guesses. “Probably threatened too. And you still blame them.”

His eyes flash. “I was trying to _help_. Tried to mediate the situation, asked them to _wait_ for me to find a workaround. Instead, they went behind my back; made it _worse_. So, yeah, I blame them.”

It's rich, she thinks bitterly, that he’s blaming others for making a situation worse while _he’d_ tried to alleviate it. Not that she’d expect Sam Wilson of all people to see the parallels between his actions at the Circle, and Tony’s during the Civil War.

But her bitterness bleeds away at the self-loathing on his face. “Blame me too,” he admits, grimacing. “Should’ve been stronger, smarter… _faster_.”

Isabelle swallows. She knows what he’s remembering - the only thing they have in common. They both have nightmares about loved ones falling to their deaths.

“When I came to after the crash,” he continues, “ - scientists had already infiltrated and imprisoned everyone. Somehow they didn’t find me, and I couldn’t get anyone else out, so I escaped.”

Isabelle pulls up an image on her omni-tool. “You see this guy among the scientists?” she points to the malicious gaze of Erich Paine. Her question is answered when Wilson’s face tightens in a poisonous mixture of guilt and hatred. “I’m assuming he had something to do with these ‘demon spirits’.”

He nods. “Paine tried to replicate Shuri’s medical breakthrough. But his experiments.. _backfired_ , created some kind of euphoriant. Used it on his own men. Red eyes, glowing teeth, powers allowing them to throw a man ten feet away with their minds.”

“And the flight recorder?”

He shrugs. “Took me a while to figure out no one was coming to look for us. So I snuck in last week, made my way to the bridge, wrenched out the flight recorder, but they caught me. It’s where I lost my wings,” he says, pointing to the mangled remnants of his suit. “They probably must’ve tampered with the recorder, made it show that huge explosion so no one would risk a recovery.”

Isabelle sighs, runs her hand down her face. Her mission parameters have changed; this is a rescue op now. But _sixty_ operatives, give or take those who didn’t survive the crash or the occupation. How is she getting them out?

She walks a bit further, staring at the Circle. She can spot only one visible entrance - an opening at one of the oblong tower-like structures kept half-open by a malfunctioning panel. “F.R.I.D.A.Y., what caused widespread system failure?”

“ _Best guess? Their power core overloaded.”_

“So… if provided with an alternative power source, the Circle should start up?”

 _“... sure. Until the strain on the remaining functional thrusters is too much and it crashes,_ again _. I don’t like where your mind is heading.”_

That brings a slight smile to her face. “How long will it stay up in the air before the thrusters fail?”

F.R.I.D.A.Y. makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like a defeated sigh. “ _I’d wager about fifteen minutes.”_

She returns to Wilson and works her jaw for a moment. “My mission was to recover the flight recorder, figure out what Erich Paine was up to, and get the hell out before anyone caught me. My _mission…_ just got a lot more complicated.” She sighs. “I am gonna need your help, and your trust, because I can’t do this alone.”

“Do what?”

Isabelle smiles grimly. “We’re gonna _take back the Circle_.”

\-----

“ _The Director said you can’t be seen._ ”

She flicks on the switches on the ceiling above the pilot’s seat, glancing at the readouts on the display. “That ship is gonna sail sooner or later, F.R.I.D.A.Y.” Her fingers fly over the holographic screens. “I’d rather steer the rudder myself than have someone else do it.”

Her co-pilot grunts as he adjusts his headset, glancing at the controls. “Now I know why the Wakandans call this technology ‘primitive’.”

“ _I take offense to that._ ” F.R.I.D.A.Y. says just before the engines roar to life and the Quinjet takes off. The view of the mountains, lit by the warm glow of sunrise, is breathtakingly magnificent, but her gaze is fixed on the Circle leaning against steep rocks and boulders of the valley.

She makes her way to the tower she’d spotted earlier. It’s one of the least damaged portions, and she heads towards the opening barely large enough for the Quinjet to pass through. The panel is stuck halfway through, so she accelerates and rams into it.

Even a vibranium reinforced metal can’t withstand the force of a four-hundred thousand pound Quinjet. She’s thrown forward, her body straining against the seatbelts.

Behind her, the overhead compartments bang open, and something tumbles and shatters, but she doesn’t bother looking as she yanks at the joystick. The landing gear screeches as it skids along the darkened, narrow hangar. The nose comes inches from crashing into the back wall before finally halting.

She takes a few deep breaths, then unstraps herself and heads to the back of the Jet, towards the fabricator cabin. Prompted by her approach, a narrow panel slides open on the wall, and delicate mechanical arms emerge, cradling a flat cylindrical object with a brightly glowing core.

Isabelle stares at it for a long moment, her throat thick. Part of her feels like she’s tearing off a piece of her soul by doing this, but she can see no other way to liberate the Circle.

Steeling herself, she wraps slender fingers around the spare arc reactor and yanks it out.

  
  


####  **Containment Laboratory**

**The Circle**

**_A few hours earlier…_ **

Erich Paine shrugs into the hospital gown his assistants hold out for him. The screen in front of him transcribes everything he’s recording.

_“... but I have finally cracked Princess Shuri’s medical breakthrough, and I’m confident enough to pursue the risk of self-experimentation.”_

Jana is preparing the general anesthesia. “You better be sure about this,” his head neurosurgeon says as he settles down at the operating table. He just nods determinedly.

“ _The Wakandans are notably resistant to sedatives; indeed, chemicals of any kind. But the S.P.E.A.R. agents possess no such immunity. After months of experimentation, I’ve managed to whittle down their will using a combination of induced,_ regulated _addiction via skull implants and the_ _Faustus re-education technique._ _These will be my vanguard force to present to M’Butu, in exchange for more specimens.”_

“ _Despite failures_ ,” he continues recording. “ _I’ve found that even cadavers can be valuable. Autopsies have revealed much about how the drug - which the locals have tentatively named_ _‘red sand’;_ _a particularly apt name considering just_ where _it has been derived from - interacts with brain tissue and the nervous system._ ”

“ _Initial results from vivisections seem promising, but I can’t help feeling that I’m missing a key component, a control subject against which to try further trials. In lieu of other options, will try using the Asset as a control subject.”_

He exhales deeply to calm his racing heart. The calculations are solid… this _will_ work.

 _“Surgery should take no more than five hours, and estimates suggest a three-day recovery; the trials on the locals_ will _continue under the guidance of Dr. Waycross during that time period.”_

He nods to Jana then and closes his eyes when he feels the first prick of the syringe at his vein.

Come tomorrow, Erich will have a brand-new, and well-deserved lease on life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** MCU CONTEXT **
> 
> **Treehouse**
> 
> The Treehouse was briefly mentioned in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as a base that was overtaken by HYDRA during the Uprising. They have never mentioned it again.
> 
> So I decided to use it in my fic as the North-Eastern African Headquarters. I like to think S.H.I.E.L.D. was keeping an eye on Wakanda, even when the latter was pretending to be a third-world country. 
> 
> ** COMICS CONTEXT **
> 
> **Erich Paine and M'Butu**
> 
> In the comics, Paine used to experiment on mutants (from X-Men), before heading to Niganda and demoted to experimenting on animals instead. He has a connection to M'Butu, the Prime Minister of Niganda as well. I derived a lot of elements from that comic series as well.
> 
> I fleshed out his backstory to fit in with the world I'm building.
> 
> **S.P.E.A.R.**
> 
> In the comics, the full form is ‘Specialized Personnel for Eradication and Removal’. I’m probably gonna change it just like I did with S.W.O.R.D.
> 
> S.P.E.A.R. was actually a _Chinese_ intelligence-gathering organization. But, I wanted to include Wakanda in this fic. Besides, spears are more of a Wakandan thing, no?
> 
> The Circle is their HQ. Flying base, like the Helicarrier.
> 
> **Demon Spirits**
> 
> In the comics, these were Wakandans exposed to raw vibranium. The scientific term is ‘Vibranium Mutates’. They went insane.
> 
> In my fic, I just used the term cuz it sounded cool and it fit with where I'm taking this.
> 
> ** MASS EFFECT CONTEXT **
> 
> **Promethei Planum**
> 
> South polar region of Mars. Seasonally covered with a very thick layer of ice (not in my fic though). Super relevant in Mass Effect Canon; will be explored in the upcoming chapters. 
> 
> **Lowell Outpost**
> 
> I mentioned this earlier as humanity’s first extraplanetary outpost on Mars. There’s one on the moon too. 
> 
> **Second Civil War**
> 
> Again, mentioned before. In this fic, this started when secessionists blew up the Statue of Liberty and tried to destroy Manswell’s Ark. Yeah, in-world, that was a couple of years ago, but for us, it’s only been months since those first chapters. 
> 
> The Battle of Washington is the last battle in this war. In my fic, Rhodes has been deployed by the Air Force to make sure the UNAS win (and they will - spoilers;) ) 
> 
> **Omni-Tool**
> 
> It's to Mass Effect what the One Ring was to Lord of the Rings. The symbol of the future that the video game series represents.
> 
> A communication device, scanner, melee weapon all rolled into one. F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s definition of the omni-tool has been directly taken from Mass Effect wiki (honestly I couldn't do any better). The basic structure looks a hell of a lot like a Gauntlet, which was a treat to explore. An exciting, symbolic yet horrifying parallel that I couldn't help but point out. 
> 
> I've also included definitions of some tech powers that players employ in the games. 
> 
> 1\. Sabotage - overloads target weapons and armor.  
> 2\. Overload - basically a glorified taser; targets electronics  
> 3\. Incinerate - burns targets to a crisp. Can be combined with Overload for BOOM!  
> 4\. Cryo-Blast - freezes targets. Can be combined with Overload for SHATTER!  
> I was very excited to include the omni-tool. Such a versatile gameplay element. The scanner doesn't really exist in the original trilogy, just in Mass Effect: Andromeda, but I felt that was such an awesome tool, I decided to include it. 
> 
> I decided that Tony Stark designed the omni-tool in my fic. I couldn't help but find parallels between the Kimoyo beads displayed in Black Panther movie and Coulson's Prosthetic Hand. 
> 
> **Red Sand**
> 
> A euphoriant drug, gives temporary telekinesis. Side effects - glowing teeth, bloodshot eyes.
> 
> Fans of Mass Effect know exactly what this drug is, and where it comes from ;) I'm getting so close to finally addressing what the summary of this fic suggested - the event you've all been waiting for. Just a few more chapters, folks!


	14. Like a Hell-Broth Boil and Bubble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isabelle had prepared for causing chaos, not landing in the _middle_ of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings:** Canon-level description of torturous experiments, brainwashing. Mentions of non-consensual drug usage and addiction. Please stay safe.
> 
> Still un-betaed. Mistakes remain mine.

_For a charm of powerful trouble,_

_Like a hell-broth boil and bubble._

_Double, double toil and trouble;_

_Fire burn and cauldron bubble._

\- Macbeth; William Shakespeare

###  **_A few months earlier…_ **

####  **The Reconditioning Room**

**The Circle**

Erich’s adjusting the cuffs on the Faustus rig when Jana walks in.

He doesn’t have to look over to know that her eyes are tight. She’s never approved of his insistence on what she refers to as ‘archaic’ approaches towards persuasion. He understands her frustration - the secrets of the Faustus program died with Johann Fennhoff - no one knows _how_ it works, just that it does.

And Jana doesn’t like anything she can’t quantify.

“It’s been almost three weeks,” she says, launching into the same argument they had this morning. “Even the most stubborn subjects submit within _days_. It’s time you consider other options, Erich. The induced addiction is working wonders on the others.”

He shakes his head, increases the saturation levels of the screen visuals. The asset strapped to the mechanism grunts and strains against his single handcuff. Erich is glad he'd had the foresight to fabricate it using the Circle's vibranium supplies; ordinary metal wouldn’t have been able to hold their prisoner.

“Addition of external factors might disturb the process; I don’t want to risk it,” he says, examining the prisoner’s kohl-darkened eyes. Gratifyingly, they’re completely blank, emotionless, with no hint of the rage and terror that had been present when Erich’s guards had first captured him trying to sneak into the base.

His words just seem to incense Jana further. She takes a deep breath. “And I suppose starvation, dehydration, and electrocution don’t count?”

He gives her a look. “Techniques his mind has already adapted to earlier. Trust in the method, Jana. The Asset’s mind will always be malleable to reconditioning; seventy years can’t just be wiped away.”

She scoffs, turns away, and he won’t have that. Out of everyone, he won’t have _her_ doubting him.

He turns to the asset.

“Take a deep breath,” he says, his voice falling into his best soothing tone as he begins the familiar lullaby.

His words have the intended effect - Jana freezes at the door.

“Calm your mind. You know what is best. What is best is you comply."

The prisoner exhales.

“Compliance will be rewarded. Are you ready to comply?”

The Winter Soldier blinks. “I’m _happy to comply_.”

  
  


###  **June 5th, 2025**

####  **Aircraft Hangar**

**The Circle**

Isabelle had prepared for causing chaos, not landing in the _middle_ of it.

Wilson’s scouting ahead, while she finishes linking F.R.I.D.A.Y. into a console, ears pricked for more explosions deeper into the facility. Flashing red lights illuminate the hangar, accompanied by a blaring alarm that sets her teeth on edge.

Her strategy had hinged on freeing the most essential prisoners first, then using their combined forces to reclaim the facility using a combination of tactics and tech. Plans usually tend to go belly-up when exposed to an enemy, so she’d tried to limit antagonistic contact by giving F.R.I.D.A.Y. access to peripheral systems of the Circle.

Two Enhanced guards had burst in through the doors almost as soon as they’d descended from the Jet. Unlike the ones at the barn, these ones had been out of control, maddened by whatever Paine had done to them, which just made them easier to eliminate.

“What’ve we got?” Isabelle asks.

“ _Can’t access surveillance cams from here, but emergency logs indicate several Wakandans broke out during experimentation; attacked their captors and are attempting to break into the north-eastern section of the facility.”_

“Instead of making a run for it?” Isabelle brings up the schematics of the ring, and F.R.I.D.A.Y. highlights the aforementioned section in green. “Must be something important in there.”

“ _IR scans reveal a large number of individuals lying prone. Their core body temperature is very low; dangerously low. Also, I detect an access node to uplink with Circle databanks.”_

Wilson returns then, and something red, white, and blue at the corner of her eye splinters her focus. Her head snaps up, the vision in front of her confirming what she’d already known.

Her stomach drops.

There’s a very familiar, vibranium shield on his arm.

The symbol that had brought decades of ruin to the Stark family, in one way or another. The shield that Steve Rogers had smashed into Tony Stark’s arc reactor, almost caving in his artificial sternum; the climax to a massive betrayal.

Her breath hitches and her eyes glow cold for an instant before she reigns back her fury. Sam Wilson is _not_ Rogers, though the juxtaposition rings hollow when she remembers that he may well be when one considers his myopic and borderline sycophantic devotion towards the former Captain America.

“Is there a morgue in the facility?” she asks coolly, forcibly wrenching her mind back to the present.

“There is, but that ain’t it.” Wilson’s fingers tighten around the shield as he stares at the north-eastern section. “Prisoners must still be alive; the escapees are trying to get to them, but that sector is heavily sealed. You carryin’ any tranqs with you?” he asks, apropos of nothing. “I’d rather not draw blood.”

The very obvious change of topic makes all the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. She chooses not to call him out on the prevarication… for now. “Rear cabinet,” she nods to the Quinjet. “Pick some I.C.E.R. grenades too, while you’re at it.”

Isabelle eyes the console as he scrounges for the weapons, mapping the quickest route to the prisoner's sector. She accepts the grenades he holds out, slipping them into her utility belt. “Non-lethal strikes against any Wakandans we encounter,” she agrees, locking eyes with him.

“But all others are fair game.”

* * *

####  **Operating Room**

There’s an intruder in the systems.

When Erich had first boarded the Circle, he’d found to his immense annoyance that his best hacking experts couldn’t crack the firewalls Princess Shuri had built. After a month of a combination of subterfuge and brute-force methods, they’d finally managed to gain access to a few of the systems.

It is ironic, then, that he finds himself grateful to the same defenses, which are now repelling every attempt made by Stark’s A.I. from gaining access to the essential systems. But they’re not infallible. The artificial intelligence will eventually get through.

“You need to rest,” Jana says. The grooves on her forehead are deep, but her hands are steady when she hands him the medication. “Even minimal stress can cause unforeseen complications.”

He waves away her concerns but downs the medication gratefully - his head does ache. The surgery had gone perfectly; according to all scans, the abnormalities in his brain have completely disappeared. Shuri’s miraculous formula had worked even better than expected. But “ - we have bigger problems.”

As though prompted by his words, another distant explosion rocks the facility. The walls shudder with the impact, and Jana jumps when one of the beakers slides off the countertop and smashes on the floor, but other than that there’s not much damage. For now. “How’d they escape?” he asks.

“Miscalculation on the red sand dosage,” Jana replies grimly. “The rebels managed to overcome the restraints, tore through the staff on duty.”

“And the Asset?”

“I sent him to deal with the Wakandans in the southern section,” she says, her expression morphing into something approaching grudging respect. “The reconditioning worked even better than expected. But the situation is spiraling out of control, Erich.”

Poor Jana. She is a brilliant scientist, but she has never had it in her to lead, to enforce the necessary control - which is the main reason he’d recruited her; working with the massive egos of Strucker and List had been a _nightmare_. It’s unfortunate, that the rebellion had occurred just when he’d been incapacitated, forcing Jana into a role she’d never been trained for because her lack of… _initiative_ may have cost them a lot more than he’s willing to admit.

“If the insurgents manage to regain control of the core…” she is saying.

“They _won’t_ ,” he insists, turning back to the console, fingers flying across the holographic keyboard as he tries to find a workaround through the defenses. “We’ve had to put down rebellions before; this will be no different.”

* * *

####  **Containment Chamber**

She bursts through the double-door and punches the first guard before his fingers can wrap around his holstered gun. Evading his clumsy attempt at retaliation, she grabs his gun, ducks under his arm, and shoots the second guard in the kneecap, then dispatches the first one with a couple more strikes.

Wilson dispatches the third guard with a wicked right hook and three shots to the chest.

His face is stormy; for the past few minutes, he hadn’t even bothered taking out the shield while dealing with Paine’s guards. F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s route had them reach the prisoner’s chambers quickly, but they still had to deal with a few of the escaped Wakandans on the way over.

Despite being an obvious foreigner, _Isabelle_ hadn’t been the one the rebels had targeted. Wilson’s neutrality in the coup has had enough of an impact on the Wakandans that they’d recognized him even through the fervor of rage and pain, and had no qualms going against a man they see more as a traitor than a mediator.

She doesn’t blame them. Wilson’s reticence about the north-eastern section of the Circle had become more pronounced the closer they got to their destination. Isabelle can’t quite help the feeling that she’s walking into - if not a trap, then definitely something she’s not going to like.

Her first impression of the room does nothing to dissuade her of that belief.

It is a large laboratory, visibly curved with an exit on the far end of the arc. Sterile surfaces greet her, and the air is thick with the smell of disinfectant, especially around the operating tables. A heavily reinforced door interrupts the smooth inner circumference of the room, and Wilson immediately heads towards the console beside it.

There’s a narrow terminal booth extruding from the outer wall - the access node F.R.I.D.A.Y. had mentioned earlier - and she finishes linking up the A.I. just as Wilson manages to hack through the door.

The hallway beyond is dimly lit with a muted forest-green glow. Long, thick wires run across the floor panels, connected to what look like horizontal cylindrical tubes, inserted horizontally into large sockets built into the wall. The airman immediately heads to the hollow space at the far end and brings up a console using a series of complicated gestures.

As though he knows exactly what he’s doing.

Isabelle’s gaze, however, is arrested by the tubes, and a memory tickles inside her mind because this reminds her of something, something she’s recently seen.

The realization leaves her hot and cold at the same time.

The omni-tool’s scanner confirms her doubts, making her stomach tighten. “Why does a S.P.E.A.R. facility need _cryostasis_ faculties?” she asks, but even as she asks the question, the answer runs through her mind in a series of images, like watching a film reel.

Isabelle thinks of the Peak, where T.A.H.I.T.I. had been revealed to her, and Manswell’s Ark. She remembers the Circle’s exterior - the six immensely powerful thrusters, the large facilities, the vastly impressive safety measures built into the structures. “The Circle was going to space.”

Wilson neither confirms nor denies the statement, but he doesn’t need to.

Manswell’s Ark being lost had made news just a few months ago, but humanity isn’t going to stop just because of one setback. The Gagarin Station is still in its final stage of construction at the edge of the solar system, and other permanent settlements have been deployed to Mars and the Moon.

Is she really surprised that Wakanda would try something similar?

Isabelle really doesn’t want to imagine Coulson’s face when he realizes what exactly Wakanda was intending to use S.H.I.E.L.D. tech for. “Where were you headed?”

“Nowhere at first - it was just gonna be a series of shakedown runs,” Wilson works his jaw. “After the final checks, though… _Mars._ Maybe further on.”

_Shuri returned from Birnin T’Chaka then, to send you?_ He’d asked in the barn. Isabelle should’ve immediately placed the name.

Birnin T’Chaka - the name of Wakanda’s outpost on Mars.

She sighs. It might be paranoia, but this slow-paced assembling of information doesn’t let her trust anyone, not Wilson, not even Coulson. She turns to the omni-tool. “F.R.I.D.A.Y., analyze the occupied pods.”

“ _Most of them seem to be Wakandan, skipper, but I’m getting signals corresponding to S.P.E.A.R. inner-ear comms. I detect multiple untreated injuries and contusions, surgical scars, and all of them have track marks._ ” She hesitates then, and Isabelle’s blood runs cold. “ _A few of them have no life signs; Paine seems to be preserving corpses._ ”

Wilson exhales deeply and walks over. “Can we free those who are still alive?”

“ _I don’t know what they’ve been dosed with, so can’t tell if they’ll have any side effects_.”

Isabelle shuts her eyes tight, breathes for a moment, then opens them. “Mission parameters haven’t changed,” she reminds him. “See if you can bring up identification logs from the console; wake the S.P.E.A.R. scientists. Free the Circle, then we can wake the rest.”

She watches him go with growing uneasiness. “You get through Shuri’s defenses yet?” she mutters.

“ _I'm going to need more time. She’s really good.”_

The arc reactor she’d stolen from the Quinjet presses against her thigh. “Will replacing the core help?”

F.R.I.D.A.Y. hums in her comm piece. “ _There will be a brief period before all the systems reboot and the firewalls come online. I might be able to download something then._ ”

“Do it. I want to know what exactly the Circle was up to.”

“ _Will do._ ”

* * *

####  **Cryo Chamber**

“ _Skipper, we have a problem._ ”

“Talk to me.”

“ _There’s a group of Wakandan escapees headed your way.”_

“What about Paine’s guards?”

“ _Dead. Another team is moving to intercept, but they won’t get to the Wakandans before they reach you.”_

She swallows down a string of profanities, looks over to the scientists they’d just emancipated. Wilson’s murmuring quietly to them, comforting those whose minds are lost in whatever horror they’ve witnessed these past few months.

She strides over. “We don’t have time for this,” she tells him, her voice firm enough to carry over to the handful of scientists shivering beneath blankets. “They’re coming for us; we need to move.”

“They’re in no condition to...”

Isabelle crouches, rummages through the large medical crate at his feet and withdraws a small box of syringes filled with a clear liquid. “Epinephrine shots. Emergency dose,” she says, tossing it. “I’d say this counts, don’t you?”

Wilson stares long and hard, then finally breaks out of it when one of the agents clutches his arm and nods tiredly, face determined.

Isabelle leaves him to it, makes her way to the terminal booth in the laboratory. Her eyes linger on the blinking console and an idea begins to form in her mind.

Howard and Peggy Carter had had their differences, especially in their later years, but one thing they’d always agreed on was their mutual respect for The Art of War, by Sun Tzu. Even in that, they couldn’t completely reconcile, because while Isabelle’s father had taken away lessons of warfare and weapons from the text, Carter had assimilated silence and secrets into her organization.

Knowledge that she’d passed onto Isabelle herself.

She closes her eyes.

**_Begin by seizing something which your opponent holds dear; then he will be amenable to your will._ **

“F.R.I.D.A.Y., anything from the access node?”

“ _Paine’s been clever; his encryption is entangled with S.P.E.A.R.’s - can’t break through one without breaking another. A remnant of his HYDRA days, I’m guessing.”_

She blinks. “S.P.E.A.R. is a division of S.H.I.E.L.D. though, isn’t it?” Her fingers fly across the holographic keyboard.

F.R.I.D.A.Y. catches on immediately. “ _Might work, unless Shuri’s ripped out those too. She’s done a number on the other systems. Looks like S.P.E.A.R. really_ was _breaking up with the rest of the band.”_

“Without going through the proper channels,” she murmurs, heaving a sigh of relief when the systems accept her authorization codes. It allows her access only to S.P.E.A.R. systems - Shuri having… _reoriented_ the rest - but she has enough control to cause significant damage.

“We won’t make it to the core,” Wilson says. Isabelle glances behind him; the agents seem alert and ready, but she knows the epinephrine won’t last long - they’ve got maybe ten minutes. “There’s too many of the Wakandans; they’ll tear through _us_ just as readily as they’ll do the guards.”

“I might have a way around that.”

Isabelle takes a deep breath, and with a sour taste in her mouth, hands over the arc reactor.

He looks at her sharply, so she shrugs, brings up the schematics of the base. “You ever played the board game _Rush Hour_?” Not waiting for an answer, she explains. “You have a red car, and you have to navigate through a gridlock made of other vehicles to reach an exit.”

S.H.I.E.L.D. HQs almost constantly expect invasions, either from malicious groups or well-meaning military personnel, and so they are deliberately constructed like labyrinths, with individual sections that can be locked down. The Circle is no different.

The ring makes it harder to plot a route, but her fingers start sliding over the screen, blocking entire rooms, even hallways. She imagines she hears the distant sounds of rooms, hallways, and sections going into lockdown, forcing the rebels and Paine’s men to go down only the path she determines.

“I loved mazes as a kid,” Wilson says, staring at the console. “In yours, the exit leads… _here_ , to the containment chamber. For both the groups. You’re pitting them against each other.” His tone is disapproving.

Isabelle shrugs. “Both want control of the chamber, and Paine’s guards haven’t been losing lethal force. I say we give them what they want, let them hash it out; while you and the men make your way to the core. Set up a bridge for F.R.I.D.A.Y., she’ll help you replace the reactor.”

He tips his head to the side, eyebrows squishing together. “This plan not involve you coming?”

She glances at him. “Told you, my mission is and has always been _Paine._ Easiest way is to free the Circle, get it over to Wakandan soil where we can incarcerate him.”

There's silence for a long moment. “Why’d they send _you_ after him?” He asks, apropos of nothing. “Politically risky to have an Avenger on Niganda, let alone two.”

**_Oh,_ ** **now** ** _you care about politics?_ **

She doesn’t voice the thought, though, just maintains an indifferent tone as she tries to figure out where he’s going with this. “Coulson thought it was worth the risk. Didn’t know you’d be here, or I doubt he’d have assigned me. “

“Or maybe… it’s because you and Paine have something in common - _HYDRA_.”

She stills for a long moment, then smiles humorlessly. So _that’s_ what this is about.

His voice had been noncommittal, but that doesn’t mean anything - her fellow S.H.I.E.L.D. agents back at the Lighthouse display cold neutrality towards her just as often as they indulge in passive-aggressive commentary. “You’ve done your research.”

“Wasn't twiddling my thumbs these past few months, Collins. Had Redwing spy on M’Butu’s weekly meetings with Paine, heard them talk, put two and two together. He a friend of yours?”

“Never met him.” She fights to keep her voice even. “If I wanted to sell you out, I’d have done it by now, Wilson.”

He doesn’t back down. “HYDRA tends to play the long game.”

She bristles, her fingers pausing on the keyboard. “You might not see it, but I did what I had to do.”

He scoffs. “I’ve heard that one before.”

“As I recall, you didn’t seem to have a problem using _that_ as a reason to _break an airport_ with _your_ posse.”

His eyes turn to steel.

“You wanna do this, here?” he snarls, taking a step forward, looming over her. “Fine. Let's talk about the Civil War. Let’s talk about how you _backed out of the fight_. Bucharest, Berlin, _Leipzig…_ I didn’t see you there for _any_ of it. Tony got shot in the _face_ , Collins, your _husband…_!”

Her eyes flash a brilliant cyan. “Don’t you _dare_ talk about Rhodey. Not _you_.”

She’s shaking now, and her fingers clutch the console, frost spreading outwards as she struggles to swallow the rage and despair before it pours out of her in any icy tsunami.

Wilson looks stricken, as though realizing that he’s crossed a line. Remorse flashes across his face, but Isabelle has no empathy for him - someone who hadn’t even bothered to know the whole story and had instead blindly followed a man intent on his own agenda.

She slants her body away from him, drawing in slow, steady breaths to control the tremors. “You’re right about one thing,” she says finally through clenched teeth. “If I’d been there, Rhodey never would’ve fallen… because I’d have put you in the ice, right _next to your heroes_.”

F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s voice comes through, warning thick in her tone. “ _Skipper…”_

They both retreat a safe distance from each other, and Isabelle turns back to the console, resisting the urge to rip something apart. Her fingers fly furiously over the keyboard. “I don’t care if you don’t like me, Wilson. But we got a job to do.”

After a long time, he nods and turns to leave.

“And the next time you have trouble trusting me… I suggest you remember I just handed over _my brother’s heart_.”

* * *

####  **Operating Room**

Erich keeps his eyes on the screen, watching Falcon lead the S.P.E.A.R. scientists through the maze Collins has constructed. He can feel the tight, taut ropes of his control fraying at the edges, as he watches everything that he’s built in the past four months burn.

He still believes he can salvage the situation, even though Jana has already started the evacuation process. His techs are duplicating all their data onto the systems of their getaway plane, but he still hasn’t made the decision of whether to transport the hard assets or just create them all from scratch once again.

He finds himself torn, because packing away the crates and barrels of red sand feels like admitting defeat, and despite the danger to his operation, to his very _life…_ he doesn’t feel like he’s there yet. Instead, Erich feels like he’s at the edge of a major epiphany, a way out of this roadblock he’s driven himself into, and he can’t, he _won’t_ leave, not until he finds it.

He turns back to the screen, his gaze lingering on Collins going through his personal logs. He’s not too worried about S.H.I.E.L.D. knowing of the work he’s done here; let them see what he’s achieved, what he has _exposed_.

His opponents have a solid plan, he admits, unfreezing the S.P.E.A.R. scientists and restarting the offline core of the Circle with an arc reactor, which will allow them to achieve liftoff and even have sufficient leftover energy to direct the facility towards Wakandan soil before it finally crashes again.

He can’t even supplement guards to defend the core; the lockdown controls are firmly in Collins’ fingers, who’s maneuvering his own forces and the Wakandan rebels impressively, leading them directly into the containment chamber even as her allies flee.

Yes, a good plan.

He’d almost be impressed if it weren’t for the fact that Collins had essentially provided him the means of her defeat herself.

Erich doesn’t like waste, but he isn’t naive enough to think that there won’t be casualties. This is war, after all.

Jana has strictly ordered him not to tax his body any further, but that’s an easy promise to keep. He doesn’t have to do much other than march through the digital doorway Collins’ access codes have provided and take control of the intercom.

It won’t be long now.

* * *

Sam sprints through the hallways, the S.P.E.A.R. agents close behind him. Collins had done exactly as she’d promised - cleared the route to the Circle’s core. He’s glad that the only stragglers they’d encountered so far had been Paine’s guards - he can’t stomach hurting any more Wakandans.

They’re innocents in this; all of them are. Sam’s struggling to assign blame to anyone in this entire mess - even Paine had only taken advantage of a situation that had already gone south.

Before all this, before the Battle of Earth… he’d been perfectly content to follow, but ever since Steve went and got himself that life, Sam has been feeling… lost.

He doesn’t really know where he belongs.

He stayed in Wakanda after the Blip because he hadn’t known where else to go. The color of his skin doesn’t really make him one of them. And the Civil War had shaken loose his faith in people. Steve had trusted T’Challa, and Sam trusted Steve, and that should’ve been enough - but Sam remembers that the Cat King had tried his level best to kill them in Romania and Germany, and had broken the Accords just by granting them refuge in his country.

He can’t trust a man whose loyalties are so easily shifted.

S.P.E.A.R. isn’t much better, but at least they had just been trying to break the secrecy surrounding what might just be the discovery of the century.

It’s why he’d been so torn during the coup.

Hope fills his chest as he recognizes the hallway; they’re close to the core. But then the back of his neck prickles, and he stumbles to a halt, and raises a closed fist, stopping the others in their tracks.

For a moment, he thinks he’s mistaken it, whatever it is that had raised his hackles, but then there it is again - a faint whine, followed by a crackle - the sound of an intercom.

“ _Take a deep breath,”_ a gravelly voice commands. _“Calm your mind.”_

Sam whirls at the sound of a groan, fingers twitching at his holster. One of the agents is leaning against the wall, clutching her head, muttering “ - no, no, _no_ \- ” over and over again.

“ _You know what is best. What is best is you comply.”_

The words freeze him too, drenching him with a strange sense of deja vu, even though he’s never actually seen this before, he knows exactly what is happening. He looks around, his goggles scanning, but Shuri has been thorough; the HUD can’t spot the device. He draws Cap’s shield, watching helplessly as the commanding voice makes its way into their minds, replacing all thought, all free will except its own.

“ _Are you ready to comply?”_

They still, their heavy breaths slowly calming, and for a moment he almost believes they’ll shake it off, but then their heads snap up, and blank, emotionless eyes lock onto him.

“We are happy to comply,” they say in unison.

* * *

####  **Cryo Chamber**

“ _Download at 76%._ ”

Isabelle’s fingers grip the console tight, and she stares sightlessly, drowning out the enraged yells emerging from the corridor beyond the containment chamber with Peggy Carter’s voice quoting Sun Tzu to her, as she’d done so many times in her childhood, in lieu of a traditional bedtime story.

**_In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity._ **

The quote trails away in her mind just as a small army of guards burst through from one door, only to run into a smaller but far more deadly force of Wakandan rebels emerging from the other end.

“ _Download at 86%. Skipper…_ ” but whatever F.R.I.D.A.Y. is going to say would have to wait, because just then, a Wakandan stumbles into the terminal booth, mouth open in alarm. She strikes the gun from his hand, slams her knee into his gut, and smashes his head into the wall. He crumples to the floor and doesn’t move.

He is just the first. Isabelle has wilfully cornered herself, and her only advantage is that the two groups are more into fighting each other than her. Her fingers brush against her utility belt.

“ _93% complete. Stay close to the access node to avoid losing connection_ ,” the A.I. warns.

“Hurry it up, F.R.I.D.A.Y.,” Isabelle says tersely. The terminal booth has no door to barricade, and anyone with a functional pair of eyes could spot her.

Two guards round the corner, their eyes immediately locking onto her position. She dives out of the way of a red swirling sphere of energy that comes flying. It strikes the wall directly above the console, throwing sparks everywhere. In response, Isabelle shoves out a hand, and a wave of water erupts from her palm to strike them directly in the chest, sending them flying backward.

The thunderous crashes of lab equipment and enraged yells of the mob muffle the sound of them hitting the ground. But more guards have spotted her now, and she backs to the console as they stride towards her, rage brimming in their bloodshot eyes.

She engages them in close contact to avoid being victimized by their telekinesis again. Besides the powers, they don’t seem to be all that well-trained, so she’s rapidly able to dispatch them without sustaining more than a few bruises.

“ _Data mining complete. Now archiving and analyzing._ ”

“Send it to Coulson as soon as you get a stable connection,” Isabelle orders rapidly, before withdrawing one of the I.C.E.R. grenades from her belt. With a flick of her thumb, she arms it, breathes for three seconds, then rounds the corner of the entrance and tosses it right into the middle of the horde and then throws herself back in.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees the exact moment of the impact. A blue wave of energy erupts from the grenade, knocking both the groups back forcefully.

She gives herself a few more seconds before finally pulling herself up. The blast seems to have knocked out most of them; some of the Enhanced are actively fighting against the dendrotoxin, struggling to move, before finally succumbing to the blue veins creeping up their necks.

“You get anything from the terminal?”

“ _Last known location of Erich Paine - an operating theater in the eastern sector. Apparently, he was experimenting on himself with Shuri's 'miracle', which he managed to replicate. According to the footage, he’s still there._ ”

She makes her way to the exit. “Alright, send me the locus. Think it’s about time...”

The rest of her words are muffled by the weight of a heavy hand on her shoulder. Instinctively, she dives and rolls, sweeping her feet, but the Enhanced is too fast. He shoves a hand towards her and she’s not able to avoid the sanguine bubble in time. She’s hurtled backward, but doesn’t hit the wall like she’s expecting to; the energy had thrown her right through the doorway instead.

Isabelle pulls herself up with a groan, barely registering the beep her omni-tool gives as F.R.I.D.A.Y. forwards her a location. Her eyes lock onto the Enhanced who is rapidly striding over to her location. There are no blue veins on his neck; either he must’ve avoided the blast or shaken it off. Neither option is appealing.

She scrabbles upwards as he rushes her, evades his outstretched arms then sprints down the corridor. “F.R.I.D.A.Y., _lockdown!_ ” she yells as she spots a bulkhead, which immediately responds by sliding downwards with an ominous groan.

She realizes immediately that she’s miscalculated; the bulkhead’s dropping too fast, she isn’t going to make it in time.

The guard is faster than her, his thickset fingers brushing against the hood of her suit. Isabelle cries out as he tries to yank her backward, sweeping her palm instinctively. A thin sheen of ice forms beneath her feet, and her boots skid on the slippery floors.

His grip loosens, and she wriggles away and lets herself drop, using the momentum to slide across the floor and clear the section just before the bulkhead slams shut with a resounding thud.

* * *

* * *

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Context **
> 
> **Faustus Rig/Johann Fennhoff**
> 
> A brainwashing device employed by HYDRA. Johann Fennhoff, a character introduced in the unfortunately short-lived _Agent Carter_ TV series. His codename is 'Doctor Faustus' and he can hypnotize people to do absolutely anything. He was imprisoned, then came in contact with Arnim Zola, and that partnership I suspect brought a lot of pain to HYDRA's enemies.
> 
> The brainwashing activates with variations on these words - _'Take a deep breath. Calm your mind. You know what is best. What is best is you comply. Compliance will be rewarded. Are you ready to comply?'_
> 
> Chilling.
> 
> **I.C.E.R. Grenades**
> 
> Tranquilizer grenades, work on the same principle as the I.C.E.R. weapons, except these are AoE attacks.
> 
> ** Mass Effect Context **
> 
> **Red Sand**
> 
> In canon, the red sand wasn't created until much later, but as always, I'm shifting events and dates so it suits my fic better. Instead of having faceless criminal triads on Mars come up with the drug, I decided to have the threat much closer to home, with the creation of the red sand an unexpected, but not unfortunate (at least, for Erich Paine) side-effect of an experiment.
> 
> **Birnin T'Chaka and Wakanda's Involvement**
> 
> I've made significant changes to canon with regard to these events. In ME canon, the ESA was the first one to place a permanent settlement on Mars (Lowell City) followed closely by the UNAS and China. And in Marvel comics canon, S.P.E.A.R. and its HQ, the Circle are also Chinese.
> 
> But since I wanted Wakanda involved in this from the very beginning, I decided to use them instead of adding unknown Chinese elements from the comics. Having a Wakandan outpost on Mars will play a major role in upcoming chapters.


	15. The Sea is Only A Reflection of a Ruin Today

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isabelle faces her dark past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings:** Mentions of torturous experiments, brainwashing, violence, drug usage, addiction, cold-blooded murder. (All canon-level). Generally a pretty dark chapter, this one. Stay safe, friends.
> 
> Still self-betaed. All mistakes remain mine. 
> 
> I'll be taking another hiatus. My family and I find ourselves having to move all of a sudden, and the process is a difficult and time-consuming one. I know I just took one a few weeks ago, and I know I'm ending this on somewhat of a cliffhanger, but unfortunately, it can't be helped. I am truly sorry.
> 
> Updates will return on the 27th of September.
> 
> Let me know your thoughts in the comments down below!

_Maybe silence adds to the pain_

_and maybe pain adds to the sea_

_and maybe the sea is only a reflection_

_of a ruin today._

\- Lindos, Greece; Sandra Simonds

  
  
  


###  **June 5th, 2025**

####  **The Circle**

Sam doesn’t get ‘grey’.

His world has always been black and white, good and evil, us and them - a duality that he’s been more than comfortable with. He’d stood behind his principles, and taken down those who held opposing beliefs to his.

Then he’d met Bucky Barnes.

A war hero, a POW, the only Howling Commando to have been KIA. A victim, a brainwashed HYDRA assassin, a patsy.

A man _steeped_ in grey.

And now there are even more like him - S.P.E.A.R. agents, who had just wanted to report an enormous find to their superior only to be choked by royal bureaucracy. They’re not innocent by any means, but Sam isn’t that prejudiced against the organization to think that they deserved to be tortured and brainwashed.

A red swirling sphere comes rushing towards him, and Sam brings up the shield just in time. Most of the impact dissipates against the vibranium, but the attack had been strong enough for it to jar his bones. He grits his teeth and redoubles his efforts.

He can’t use the shield offensively; in these close quarters, it’ll just take someone’s head off. But the Enhanced thralls are also herding him, their faces blank and merciless, completely compliant to Erich Paine’s words.

The only thing going for him now is his training with the Dora Milaje and the Hatut Zeraze. Even as the agents corner him, he dodges them by weaving through the air, remembering to keep his movements precise, fluid. Sam spins, ducks beneath another telekinetic attack then smashes his shield onto an agent’s head. He drops like a stone.

He realizes his mistake in the next moment.

In raising his shield, he’d left his flank exposed. But the attack he’s expecting doesn’t come. Instead, a red field wraps around the shield, and for a second it feels almost weightless before it is yanked from his grip and goes flying down the corridor.

He ducks and rolls, trading jarring, teeth cracking blows, but he’s slowing down, he can tell - they’re Enhanced, and he doesn’t have his shield, nor his wings, and he can’t even bring out his guns.

One swift, super-powered punch to his solar plexus, and Sam doubles down, wheezing. Another agent executes a spinning kick, and he slams into the floor, blood flowing freely from his sinuses. The world spins, and he swallows down the bike that comes crawling up his throat.

He tries to push himself up, only to yell as a red field pins him down and rips his insides apart. He chokes and spits out blood, and there’s a fierce pain in his ribs that he recognizes as bruised ribs.

After what feels like an eternity, the field leaves him gasping and exhausted on the floor. His whole body feels cramped, and fire burns through his veins. Darkness is edging on his vision, forming a vignette around the sight of a thrall with an assault rifle looming over him.

There’s no way he’s going to be able to dodge that in time.

They say life flashes before your eyes when you die.

Sam’s not really seeing anything except for the darkness.

The thrall aims his weapon.

Sam shuts his eyes.

There’s a sudden, familiar report of a gun.

Familiar, yes. Far too familiar for someone like Sam, who is an expert on firearms. Which is why he realizes almost immediately that it’s not, in fact, the report of an assault rifle.

The sharp noise is immediately followed by a heavy thud, and Sam opens his eyes to see his would-be killer on the ground, unconscious, blue veins crawling up his neck.

More firing and Sam rolls himself into a ball despite his screaming ribs, but whoever’s shooting is careful not to aim anywhere near him. The thralls keep dropping like flies, unable to see their attackers in the near darkness.

At long last, there’s silence.

Sam uncurls, wheezes through the agony in his ribs. The pain has shoved away the rapid onset of unconsciousness, but he’s still bleeding, and his muscles are still screaming from the attacks.

In the dim light of the corridor, a large group of Wakandans sweep in, weapons clutched tightly in fists. They scowl at him, but keep their focus on the thrall agents, kneeling to make sure they were all incapacitated.

Heavy boots approach his location, and he tenses. Before he can do more than shift in place, a long, muscular hand is held out.

Sam hesitates, then grips the hand and lets himself be pulled up with a groan. It’s only when he is somewhat steady on his feet does he notice that the arm he’s holding on to for support is cool to the touch and shiny. _Metallic_.

His head snaps up, his eyes meeting a familiar pair of icy, blue ones.

“ _Barnes?_ ”

Sam stays very still, his eyes not leaving Barnes for an instant. The other man is relaxed, loose, but that might not mean anything - Sam has no interest in tangoing with the Winter Soldier ever again.

“What’s that?” he asks sharply when one of the Wakandans goes to inject an unconscious agent with some kinda clear liquid.

“Omega-enkaphalin,” Barnes says, then shrugs. “Only thing that suppresses the red sand’s effects. Instant withdrawal.” He waves his pistol, which Sam is startled to notice is an I.C.E.R. “Paine’s men put it in tranqs to subdue rebellions. We… _secured_ them.”

“Are you _you_?” Sam asks finally, quietly.

Barnes snorts. “Wouldn’t have blown my cover if I wasn’t.”

“Cover?”

“I’ve been here for two months, Sam. Pretended that Paine’s little brainwashing attempt stuck as it did with them," and he points to the agents. "Was his personal guard for a while. He cracked Shuri’s miracle cure, tried to use it to experiment on himself.”

The answer suddenly slots into his mind as though it's always been there. “Which is when you freed the Wakandans to take back the facility.”

Barnes shrugs, but there’s a stiffness to his shoulders. “Shuri always did say that the best way to test her treatment was out in the field.”

Sam heaves a quiet sigh of relief. “And your brilliant idea was to get yourself captured by HYDRA, _again_?”

“I thought _you’d_ be _here_!”

“So you just stayed here for two months, waitin’ for me?”

“Don’t flatter yourself; I was waiting for a window to mount a rescue, ’cause you clearly weren’t gonna.” Barnes turns away then, looks over to one of the women in his team. “What’s the verdict, doc?”

“I understand that it was necessary, but it’s dangerous to combine enkaphalin with epinephrine,” she replies. Her eyes are cool when they land on Sam, who recognizes her as one of the doctors who’d tried her level best to stay out of the coup but had been roped in anyway.

Seems like such a long time ago.

“It’s a miracle all of them are relatively stable,” the woman continues, “ - if somewhat useless for the foreseeable future. Cryo is best for them for now.”

“Can’t do that,” Sam shakes his head. “We need to restart the core, get out of this hellhole. They’re the only ones who can do it.”

One of the rebels scoffs, his eyes hard. “Please, we helped _build_ the _Circle_. We _designed_ its core. All you traitors managed to do with it is hand it over to our sworn enemies,” he spits.

“Enough with the name-calling,” Barnes intervenes before Sam can retort. “We all have one enemy here. And y’all fighting amongst yourselves is what got us into this in the first place.”

Sam hesitates, then sighs. He might not trust the Wakandans _or_ the S.P.E.A.R. agents, but Barnes… the supersoldier’s proven time and again that he can trust him, with his life… and with the one thing that could save them all.

His fingers curl over the humming arc reactor briefly, before he gives it up to more experienced hands. Barnes’ eyes track it, and there’s a haunted look to those orbs that he doesn’t care to penetrate too closely. “Where’s Collins?” the other man asks, his voice almost deliberately blank.

“Said her mission was Paine.” Sam isn’t able to completely mask the distrust in his voice.

Barnes doesn’t notice, his face twisting to something awfully close to the Winter Soldier’s blank, merciless mask. “So is mine.”

Sam grabs his arm. “I’m comin’ with you. Got words for that scumbag.”

“I’m going alone, Sam.”

“Like hell you are.”

"You're bleeding, you probably have a concussion - you'll only end up slowing me down."

"I can shake it off."

Barnes sighs in exasperation. “They need you more than I do,” he says, nodding towards the unconscious agents being carried in firemen’s holds by the Wakandans. “Secure them in cryo, make sure they don’t get activated again.”

Sam grimaces, then nods reluctantly.

“Don’t worry.” The other man’s smile is razor-sharp. “I’ll save you a piece.”

* * *

####  **The Operating Room**

Erich feels the contradicting sensations of hot and cold flooding his body.

He would almost believe it’s a side effect of the surgery had it not been for the crack running across the screen where his grip had been too tight. Jana is beside him, silent and still in her fury, but _her_ rage is directed at him alone.

He’d used the word ‘unfortunate’ before. He’d believed it had just been bad luck that the rebels had broken free just when he’d been in intensive surgery, allowing them to take control he wouldn’t have allowed otherwise.

His ego hadn’t allowed him to consider the possibility of _design_.

He replays the footage of the Winter Soldier - no, not the Soldier, this was _James Buchanan Barnes_ \- coming to the rescue of the Falcon, leading his own troop of Wakandan rebels - no doubt from the southern section where Jana had assigned him - to easily subdue the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents Erich had managed to re-educate, having somehow shaken off his own reconditioning.

Or perhaps he’d never been under the Faustus at all, and Erich had been played all these months.

The cold wins over - dousing the flames of his rage, his humiliation - replacing it with a clarity that had eluded him since the surgery.

He knows what he has to do.

Erich outlines his plans to the nervous technician before him, whose eyes widen. But the other man has more than enough sense not to argue, just nods.

Jana is stiff beside him, her face carved out of stone as she stares at the scientists trickle out of the room until it’s just the two of them. “Do you have no better ideas than to waste our hard work into this mad plan of yours?”

“It’s not a waste if we get something out of it, Jana.” He brings up an adjacent screen and shows her his trump card. Her lips curl in satisfaction as she watches the ancient footage, her eyes reflecting the blurry silver sheen of an arm. “Collins’ access codes opened a lot of doors that were otherwise closed to us. Including access to the ventilation system.”

He channels his cooled, banked fury towards his keystrokes as he uses up all of his limited control over the systems to finish laying the perfect trap for his enemies.

Barnes will regret crossing him.

* * *

####  **The Operating Room**

The faint whine of a heart monitor flatlining is the only sound that greets her when she steps through the automatic doors.

Isabelle inches closer to the head of the unoccupied surgical table, surrounded by plastic curtains. A multitude of wires disappear into various machines, and she yanks out the one connected to the LED heart monitor, watching as the uninterrupted green line fizzles out to a quiet, eerie black.

Nothing jumps out at her, and she is almost disappointed.

The room is empty, with no consoles to determine Paine’s possible location, but she glances around nevertheless. Once pale walls are now drenched in the demonic blood-red of the warning lights that are the only source of illumination in the room. An anesthesia cart has been hastily shoved to the side - she can see the scuff marks when it’d careened outwards.

She spots a camera linked to an intercom, and arches an eyebrow, raising her arms. “Gotta say, I’m not impressed by your traps,” she addresses the almost invisible device. “If that’s what this is,” she adds disdainfully.

A beat passes before it crackles on, and a rough, hoarse voice comes through. “ _If you knew it was a trap, then why did you come?”_

“Best way to figure out the kind of man you are is by testing the strength of your snares.”

He chuckles then, and the intercom distorts it enough to make it sound slightly unhinged. Or maybe it’s not a distortion, she thinks, making sure her face betrays no sign of her growing unease. “' _Snares’ implies I’m a hunter, and you, my prey. I appreciate you acknowledging your place.”_

She refrains from gritting her teeth. “Nice touch with the footage. I’m guessing you tampered with the timestamp somehow; made it so that even F.R.I.D.A.Y. didn’t detect your interference. Impressive.” Her lips curl.

“ _Now you’re just flattering me.”_

Her eyes flash a brilliant blue as she drops all pretense of amicability. “Why don’t you show me where you are next?” Her voice is just short of a snarl. “Maybe I can flatter you in person.”

Paine hums. “ _I’d rather just show you something else._ ”

Her eyes are drawn to a screen, and, as though prompted by her probing gaze, it switches on.

She inches closer as the static crackles across the screen before resolving itself into black-and-white footage. The first thing she sees is a road, cutting through dense, dark woods, lit by a single streetlight.

A chill runs down her spine, and the world tilts sideways a little. Her mind shies away from the instant recognition, latching on to the dread instead, tearing it down into bite-sized, manageable pieces, but that defense mechanism lasts only until her eyes fall to the timestamp.

_PM 7:00_

_DEC. 16 1991_

_CAM 2_

The full force of the realization hits her just as a car in the footage skids off the road and slams into a tree.

There’s no audio, but she can still make out Howard’s last words, whispered in confusion, just before the Winter Soldier caves his face in. She has watched this before, she knows what happens next - but it doesn’t stop a flinch from wracking her body.

She stumbles towards the exit because she had come prepared for a trap, not this… this _assault_ on her very soul.

The automatic doors whoosh shut as she approaches. Terror fills her then, and she tries to tug it open, but they don’t budge. There’s a secondary exit on the other side of the room which remains just as stubborn, making her realize just what she has walked into. She smashes a fist once, twice at the doors, but they are vibranium after all - the force just reverberates through her own arm instead, and she cries out wordlessly.

The images have been burned to the back of her mind since the first time she saw it, and even without looking at the footage directly, she can count down the exact seconds to when her mother’s gasps die out.

It doesn’t stop there; Paine is crueler than that. The footage replays, the worst two minutes of her life playing on an endless loop.

Isabelle aims her gun at the screen, but her hands are shaking violently, so she just smashes a fist through it instead. Cracks splinter across the glass, shattering the horrific vision. The gun drops from her nerveless fingers, and she follows it an instant later, dropping to her knees, cradling her head in her hands.

A high whine is ringing in her ears, and her head’s spinning, trying in vain to keep the familiar trauma at bay, which is why she doesn’t notice the thick, red mist flooding out of the vents until it’s too late.

She draws in a sharp breath, feels the first hints of it burning down her windpipe. She flinches again, but this time it’s because of a heat that starts in her chest, slowly spreading outwards.

The agony slicing through her innards bleeds away as she pushes herself to her trembling feet. A sensation of weightlessness infuses her body and she tips her head back, closing her eyes. She pulls in deep breaths, trying to hold it in her lungs for as long as possible, aching for something, _anything_ that’s not pain, and even that ache ceases after a moment as her mind empties.

Some part of her mind, the part that’s rapidly shrinking to nothing, screams at the dichotomy of the bipolar emotions, making itself known to her long enough to make her squint. But the red mist blends almost seamlessly with the warning lights, and by the time she recognizes the faint difference, she has already stopped caring.

Everything is heightened. She feels a familiar tingling surge beneath her too-sensitive skin, and the feeling of power, of _invincibility_ manifests itself as a sphere forms over her palm, vapor swirling into water and then to ice.

For the first time in her life, she doesn’t just have the ability to command water.

She can _create_ it.

The elation of that realization lasts only for maybe a minute though, as the red mist fades away, and the high recedes just as fast as it’d come. The sphere splinters into her palm, but she barely feels it, far too consumed by the grief that returns with a blinding vengeance, driving the breath from her lungs.

Her omni-tool flickers on. “ _Skipper,”_ F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s frantic voice comes through. “ _Your vitals are fluctuating rapidly, what’s…?”_

Isabelle mutes her, stumbling towards the operating table. Her fingers curl into the plastic curtains. “Please, _please,”_ she cries, her mind throbbing with the effort to reach out to the absent rapture. She doesn’t even know what she’s begging for - the euphoriant, or something deeper… something truer.

The intercom crackles. “ _I am not an unkind man, Agent Collins. I offer you a choice, which is far more than you offered me before you stole what was rightfully mine.”_

She doubles over, her extremities trembling with the effort to keep her on her feet.

“ _You can choose to come after me. I’m sure your A.I. has already triangulated my position. You can fulfill your mission, go home, then dive into the next as you’ve been doing all along until you realize that you can’t outrun your pain.”_

She swallows down nausea, but it doesn’t stave off the dryness of her mouth.

“ _Or you can finally find some measure of peace.”_ Her omni-tool flickers on then and her trembling fingers bring up another surveillance footage. It zooms in to a muzzled, heavily armed operative sprinting through one of the many corridors of the Circle. The metal arm is different, darker, lacking the iconic red star, but even without it, she’d have recognized the cold, dead eyes of the Winter Soldier anywhere.

“ _In the far cabinet, there is a syringe full of a liquid, concentrated form of the drug you just experienced. Even if you push yourself, I estimate it will grant you ten minutes.”_

“ _Live up to your identity, Agent Collins._ Avenge _your parents.”_

In the end, it’s an easy choice to make.

* * *

####  **The Morgue**

Bucky swipes the ID badge he’d filched from one of the lab techs. The morgue cuts the route to Paine’s getaway plane by half, but it’ll still be a close call.

The second he crosses the threshold, he knows that something’s wrong.

The room is dark, which is not surprising - Paine rarely uses the morgue, preferring the cryo room to store his corpses for easy access - but it’s also cold, the kind of cold that can never be pulled off by an air-conditioner.

The kind of cold that reminds him of the tank where the Winter Soldier had spent most of his life sleeping.

He jams the doorway, allows the barest hint of light from the hallway to penetrate the near darkness. Even with it, his Enhanced eyes can only make out the vaguest forms.

The only thing that stands out in the room is a humanoid silhouette, blocking his path to the other exit. His fingers curl into fists as he recognizes the tell-tale veins of red radiating outwards from it.

He’s had to down enough sand-blasters today, but this… this feels different. A long-buried instinct rises inside him, an instinct honed by seventy years of torture and mindlessness… an instinct that hadn’t even been triggered by Paine’s paltry attempts at brainwashing.

The figure steps forward then, and his stomach roils.

Isabelle Collins stares at him behind an armor of hard, spiked ice.

He has never met her, only seen her in footage and briefings the Winter Soldier had been shown when reactivation had taken longer than a decade. Even HYDRA had been taken in by the long shadows cast by her brother - a status that, by all accounts, she’d preferred, hiding behind the anonymity S.H.I.E.L.D. had provided.

But tonight… tonight, it’s not Isabelle Collins he faces.

It’s not even Aquamarine, the Avenger.

No, tonight Bucky recognizes with a chilling certainty the figure in front of him as one Isabelle _Stark_ \- a grieving sister, a vigilant aunt... a vengeful _daughter_.

A syringe falls from her fingers, rolls down the slightly-sloped floor to him, and one glance at the remnants of the red liquid confirms what he already knows.

He takes a step forward, a hand raised in appeal. “Collins…” he murmurs, stuttering to a stop when her icy face twists into something dark. He can just make out the bloodshot red sullying the turquoise of her eyes.

“I’m gonna savor this,” she whispers, just before she launches herself at him.

* * *

She fights silently.

There are no taunts, no jeers, just an endless barrage of punches and kicks which - while slow - hit hard enough to leave deep bruises. The few attacks he does manage to inflict barely wind her, the red sand’s high deadening her pain receptors even while enhancing her abilities.

She strikes out with her leg, anticipating that he will block it, then performs a spinning backfist. His jaw snaps sideways, and she follows it swiftly with a double roundhouse kick, then spins and uses the momentum to boot him in the chest.

The next few attacks are brutal displays of unrestrained violence, but it’s not just wild savagery. No, she is economical in her strikes, aiming where it hurts the most, drawing out the fight.

The longer Bucky spends engaged with her, the more time Paine has to get away.

He stalks towards her, and she manages to block his lightning-fast strikes, but then his leg connects with her abdomen, forcing her backward.

She recovers quickly, and he blocks another strike, grabs her shoulders, forces her downwards. His grip is too strong for her to shake off, so she plants a foot on his bent hip, clambers up, wraps her legs around his neck and rolls backward.

They both crash into the floor, but he pushes himself up faster, wraps his fingers around her throat, and slams her against the cold cabinets, and immediately socks her in the stomach with his vibranium arm hard enough to drive the breath from her lungs. “Goddamn it, Collins _, stop!_ ”

His words seem to have the exact opposite effect, though. Her fingers splay across his chest, and before he can even blink, a wave of water erupts from her palms, crashing into him with all the force of a tiny waterfall.

Bucky’s thrown clean across the room but somehow manages to right himself and land on a three-limbed crouch that makes her snarl and launch herself at him before he’s even had a moment to recover.

He doesn’t get it until she backhands him so hard his head snaps back and he stumbles backward. A trickle of blood runs down his nose. “Not _her_ name! Not from _your_ mouth!”

The realization hits him like a brick wall.

_**Collins.** _

_**Maria** _ **Collins**.

She drops to avoid his next strike, scrambles backward to avoid his stomps, then flips backward and lands on her feet.

“I am not the enemy here,” he tries, panting.

“You are _my_ enemy.”

He flexes his metallic fingers. Her eyes snap to the arm, and she stills for a second before her lips lift in a cold smile.

An orange glow in the vicinity of her wrist pierces the darkness, and a hologram manifests around her arm in the shape of a gauntlet. She raises her arm in his direction.

Before he can react, a pulse of electricity arcs out of the hologram, hitting his vibranium arm instantly. He bellows as pain races across his shoulder, strong enough to bring him to his knees.

Bucky’s seen that move before when the Black Widow had stopped T’Challa from following him in Leipzig. Electricity remains the one thing even vibranium can’t protect against, and Collins hadn’t held back in her attack. Bucky gasps and grunts, almost blinded by the pain, but still somehow manages to tug out the deadweight arm out of its socket.

Enough of this.

It takes him a few seconds to offset his balance to compensate for the loss of a limb, but he makes up for it with his speed, and her failure to land any hits on him seems to frustrate her enough that she gets sloppy.

Relief rushes him when he manages to get the slightest bit of leverage he needs, and he has her by the throat and slams her head, once, twice against the cabinets. Their eyes meet, and for a moment, the blue drains out of hers, leaving behind a pair of painfully familiar brown ones tinged with red.

Isabelle Collins inherited her father’s eyes.

For a moment, Bucky’s back on that road again, holding Howard Stark by his hair, and the other man calls out his name, refers to his rank even, and it causes a moment of hesitation... but not enough to break through decades of brainwashing. The echo of Howard’s nose caving backward into his skill reverberates through a phantom limb.

The momentary distraction is all she needs. She flips him on his back and straddles him, freezing his limbs and torso so he can’t move. He roars, but she backhands him again and slams a palm over his mouth and nose.

Water floods his sinuses and he jerks, but she doesn’t let up. His mind screams at the utter wrongness of it like it has countless times before when HYDRA had put him under cryo.

But this is different. HYDRA was _preserving_ him.

Collins just wants to drown him.

He thrashes as water rushes into his lungs, locking helpless eyes with her. Darkness encroaches on his vision until the only thing he can see is the last of the bloodshot red of her eyes draining into a pure brown, and she shudders and blinks in confusion, as though coming down from a fugue.

Just as he’s about to lose consciousness, a voice cries out “ - _enough!”._ A spinning disk of red, white, and blue tears through the space above him, striking Collins directly in the chest. It tosses her backward and boomerangs back, then is slammed down directly onto the ice holding Bucky immobile.

It shatters under the assault.

Bucky rolls to his front and vomits up all the water, rasping coughs burning out of his lungs, desperate to get the taste out of his mouth. Tears leak out of his eyes, and his windpipe feels raw. Out of the corner of his eye, he watches Sam stride across the room and jab a syringe of clear liquid into Collins’ neck before she can get up.

Her eyes widen - there is no gradual release from the high; the withdrawal hits like an earthquake - and Collins stumbles to the wall and retches vile, red substance until all that remains is bile.

Sam remains unmoved, pistol drawn and pointed towards Collins. “What the hell happened to ‘the mission’?” he snarls.

Collins’ hand trembles as she wipes her mouth, and her wide eyes meet his again, and for one instant Bucky sees something vaguely approaching horrified panic on her face before it smoothes into a blank mask.

She presses her comm. “F.R.I.D.A.Y.,” she rasps. “ _Paine_?”

The intercom crackles on. “ _He’s gone, skipper.”_

_“He’s gone.”_

The words are punctuated by a huge roar, and the ground shakes alarmingly. Sam and Collins stumble towards the walls, but Bucky’s legs are still restrained by the ice, and it takes him a few harrowing seconds to wrench his way free.

Almost immediately, there’s a muffled explosion from somewhere deep in the facility, and the Circle tilts alarmingly. Bucky scrabbles for purchase, but the floor is too slick, and a sudden massive lurch sends him tumbling uncontrollably towards the cabinets.

The last thing he sees as he hurtles through the air is Sam’s horrified face before everything goes dark.

* * *

####  **LOCATION: Somewhere over the Indian Ocean**

**_A few hours later…_ **

Back when Erich had been an intern, one quote had been seared into his brain above all else.

**_Discovery requires experimentation._ **

Despite the forward-thinking nature of his motto, Daniel Whitehall had been anything but. Erich had always privately derided him for relying too much on tried and trusted methods. A true product of his time.

It is unfortunate, then, that Erich had fallen into a similar... _complacency_.

Jana had warned him against the Faustus technique, and he’d ignored her to his folly. Without the threat of a painful death hanging over his head, it’s almost too clear how foolish his decision had been.

The Jet shudders beneath him, forcing him to swallow past nausea yet again. His long sleep had been fruitful, and all scans had shown up normal, but the forced retreat had set back his full recovery by a couple of weeks. Jana has assured him that they’re running silent; even Wakanda’s exceptional tracking systems won’t be able to lock onto them.

He rewinds the footage again, analyzing Collins’s confrontation with Barnes. Without the concentrated red sand, he’d have easily overpowered her, powers or no. Seventy years' worth of training can’t be overcome easily, even by someone who could literally desiccate the Earth, should she choose to do so.

Erich’s success with the red sand is assured. But, besides the side effects like addiction - which can only be useful to influence the subjects - his biggest problem with the chemical is that there is no _variation_.

Each subject had the same abilities, and perhaps with training they could use to control those abilities as he’d done with the few who had acknowledged the Faustus reconditioning technique. But beyond that, there aren’t, and there never will be any mutation, any... _evolution_.

It’d been at the back of his mind - this constant source of frustration - because even with this miracle in his hands, he still couldn’t prevent the eventual stagnation of the human species.

Isabelle Collins ramming her Quinjet into the Circle had reminded him that humanity as a concept, and as a race, had expanded its definition long before he’d born. Unlike HYDRA, he’d never been bothered with Enhanced or Gifted people. After all, his ultimate goal in life is to push humanity to great heights.

The red sand’s atypical reaction to Inhuman biology is the solution he’s been looking for. Erich should never have started with baseline humans. The Gifted and the Enhanced already have a head start towards the perfection of the human race; he doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel.

It’s a valuable lesson, even if it did cost a lot to learn it.

It’s not all wasteful though, he thinks. His scientists had ensured that almost all the crates of red sand had been distributed to the Nigandan populace - a petri dish if there ever was one.

Most importantly, he thinks, as Jana places a silver briefcase before him, he has everything he needs to continue his work.

Three vials greet him as he unlocks it.

One holds a similar dose of concentrated red sand he’d used to influence Collins.

The one with the clear liquid contains Shuri’s breakthrough formula which had cured his disease.

The last, with the darker liquid, holds the only remnants of Arnim Zola’s bastardized super-soldier serum outside of its host’s veins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Comics Context**
> 
> **Hatut Zeraze:** Translation: The Dogs of War. Wakandan Secret Police, basically their version of CIA. The White Wolf (from the comics) is their leader. They're like the opposite of the Dora Milaje. Nakia is a member. As were N'Jobu (T'Chaka's brother) and Zuri. I don't know much more than this.
> 
>  **Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Context**
> 
> **Daniel Whitehall:** I liked the idea of Erich Paine being a student, a mentee of Whitehall. I'd planned for this a while ago - I wrote this chapter way back in May - but the show mirrored my idea with Nathaniel Malick, and now it just looks like I mimicked them. Oh well. I'm still keeping it.
> 
> Erich Paine's going to be a bigger pain in the ass in the future. 
> 
> **Mass Effect Context**
> 
> **Omega-enkephalin:** It's an enzyme that's shown to weaken biotic powers, so I'm assuming it also works on users of red sand to bring them down from the high. In canon, it doesn't come up until much later, but as always, I'm shifting timelines. I have no idea if it's risky to combine adrenaline with omega-enkephalin; I just made it up.
> 
>  **Red Sand's Effect:** In canon, the only Gifted people are biotics, people with telekinetic abilities at different power ranges. Before them, there was no one else. But I really wanted to explore a world where 'supers' already existed, of some kind - and explore how the red sand would interact with _their_ biology, with _their_ nervous systems.
> 
> I'm thinking that with Inhumans, the red sand interacts directly with the parts of their DNA that governs their abilities, and instead of giving them the usual telekinesis, it alters their already existing gifts and turns them into... more. I came up with a very temporary enhancement of my OC's abilities - something she will never be able to achieve on her own; hydrogenesis.
> 
> Maybe, in the future, I'll contemplate how the red sand will affect the biology of other Inhumans as well - Daisy Johnson, Yo-Yo, and more.
> 
>  **Sand-Blasters:** An informal name for those who use red-sand.


	16. For Old, Unhappy, Far-Off Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Several dreadful, devastating revelations come to light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The MCU fandom - and indeed, all of Hollywood - faced a huge loss recently. Chadwick Boseman was a great man, but most importantly, he was a good one. His portrayal of T'Challa made an impact that will reverberate across the whole MCU for ages to come. 
> 
> In light of these events, it feels even more appropriate to have Wakanda involved in the upcoming storyline. 
> 
> I've attempted to be as respectful as I possibly could in this chapter. T'Challa doesn't appear much in this fic - but I've penned down a small tribute to him in the upcoming chapters. It's not much - just a gentle piece with his family, in Shuri's POV. 
> 
> Rest in power, King. You'll be missed.
> 
>  **A/N:** I’m reiterating a lot of events from the movies in this chapter, so major portions of it will seem rather repetitive.
> 
> Can’t help it, because these are issues that MCU has chosen not to address in favor of furthering the plot. Which is fine - they have limited time, and if they’d gone through every single emotional situation that the events call for, we’d be sitting in the movie hall for weeks.
> 
> But in this chapter, I’ve poked and prodded at a lot of gaping wounds. There’s a lot of lies, misunderstandings and secrets have been brushed under the rug, and I’m peeling it all back and exposing it out there for the world to see.
> 
> An abscess needs to be lanced before it can heal.
> 
>  **A/N** :
> 
> I'll be posting fortnightly from now on, in order to maintain a regular pace of submissions and avoid month-long hiatuses. Thanks.

_Will no one tell me what she sings?—_

_Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow_

_For old, unhappy, far-off things,_

_And battles long ago:_

\- The Solitary Reaper; William Wordsworth

###  **June 19th, 2025**

####  **Royal Hospital**

**Birnin Zana**

Ramonda doesn’t think she’ll ever get used to the weight of loneliness.

It had crept upon her with the death of T’Chaka, collateral damage in the machinations of a vengeful man. An ever-present wound that she tucked away in a dark corner of her mind while she prepared for her son’s coronation. She’d gotten a fleeting glimpse of it when N’Jadaka had seemingly killed T’Challa.

But her true, final plunge into its abyssal embrace had only occurred after losing both of her children to Thanos.

Somehow, her losses always seem to be tied up with the pain and grief of outsiders.

And yet, here she is, in a last, desperate attempt to bridge the splinters of her kingdom, lending an ear to the same foreigner who had ushered in an age of painful change upon Wakanda.

“Do you know the one thing that can destroy an empire, Your Majesty?”

Ramonda stares at the familiar sight of Steve Rogers - wrinkled yet unbroken by age - sitting beside his unconscious best friend, burdened with wisdom beyond his years.

She’d seen the vision many times in the immediate aftermath of the Avengers’ Civil War, when T’Challa, in an attempt to restore his lost honor, had decided to shelter international fugitives.

She suspects that is when her son had truly lost the Tribal Council’s respect. Perhaps even their loyalty.

“Enlighten me.”

“ _Secrets_ ,” the old Captain says. “Secrets destroy empires from within. I once had a secret so devastating, it brought down the Avengers and doomed the universe.”

“And which secret is it that’s tearing apart _my_ country, Captain?”

He smiles sadly. “The same, I’m afraid.” He looks over to James Barnes, who’s breathing steadily despite the myriad of medical apparatus surrounding him. “I didn’t realize how far-reaching the consequences would be.”

He takes a deep breath. “There’s only one person who can save your son’s rule. Only one person whose actions might bring your daughter home.”

“His name is _Phil Coulson._ ”

  
  


###  **June 20th, 2025**

####  **Royal Palace**

**Niganda**

Phil has never been superstitious.

But even he’s starting to see a recurring pattern in the series of unfortunate events that have dogged S.H.I.E.L.D.'s footsteps ever since he’d been ordered to assign Collins to the Circle mission.

He still doesn’t know what happened to send both so utterly off-the-rails.

His comm buzzes. “ _Coulson,_ ” Daisy’s voice comes through, grim and tense. Ignoring the mass of the servants huddling in the pantry, he finishes cuffing the unconscious guard to the pitted wall and straightens, steeling himself to face the next round of trouble. “ _I think you better get down here._ ”

“On my way.”

The Treehouse agents nod respectfully as he strides past, their borderline-reverence in stark contrast with the mistrustful looks the Wakandans send his way. T’Challa had agreed to join forces in order to take down M’Butu and his recently-Enhanced members of the royal guard, much to the disapproval of his Tribal Council of Elders.

He suspects they’d only capitulated to appease the growing suspicions of the outside world.

The peace between S.H.I.E.L.D. and Wakanda is more fragile than it's ever been; he has no choice but to walk the almost invisible line between diplomat and Director if he wants to prevent an all-out war.

As Phil heads deeper into the palace, the evidence of the recent renovation becomes more visibly jarring. Scarred grey stone walls of the servant quarters give way to ostentatiously-detailed pillars and marbled floors of the throne room, harshly echoing the disparity between the rich and the poor in Niganda.

The Dora Milaje have formed a tightly wound circle in the center of the hall, facing outwards with their spears drawn against Daisy and half-a-dozen frustrated agents, who, thankfully, haven’t reached for their own weapons yet. From within the circle emerges the unmistakable sounds of harsh pummeling, followed by pained grunts.

He makes his way through to Okoye, who, after a brief moment of hesitation, nods and lets him through.

Phil wishes he could say he was surprised at coming up on the Black Panther whaling on an overweight, helpless M’Butu, but he’d be lying. The Prime Minister is trying to staunch the bleeding from the claw marks marring his face while at the same time stave off an enraged, snarling T’Challa, and succeeding at neither.

Phil suppresses a sigh. “Your Majesty,” he says sotto voce, “ - much as I agree with the sentiment, I feel the need to remind you that he _does_ need his teeth to talk.”

T’Challa pauses then, clawed fist raised and trembling. While the Black Panther outfit offers little to no possibility of reading his face, Phil can still imagine the plethora of expressions his features must be morphing into, before finally settling on a resigned acceptance.

Another sharp, savage knock to the head and M’Butu is unconscious.

The king rises, ignores the blood dripping off his claws. It seems to be enough of a gesture because almost immediately, the circle breaks as the guards rush forth, and cart off the former Prime Minister’s unconscious body none too gently.

Phil stays still, his face expressionless as T’Challa strides towards the throne, carved out of fine oak and encrusted with precious stones and jewels.

He stares at it, breathing deeply, then with a sudden move, smashes the throne into splinters.

  
  


####  **Trial Chamber**

**Fort Hahn, Birnin Zana**

She feels a powerful sense of deja vu, strapped to her chair with power-dampening cuffs, her feet restrained in a similar manner. The table is round, instead of rectangular, and the people are unfamiliar - Wakandan Tribal of Elders instead of prosecutors - but the circumstances are too similar to not remind her of the last time Isabelle had done this; almost a decade ago now, being forced to answer for a much longer list of crimes.

Tony had been the one on the other end of the table at the time, still as a statue, eyes boring holes into her as she admitted to crime after crime, holding nothing back after decades of being forced to keep her mouth and her heart shut under HYDRA’s reign. It had been freeing at the time, even if it had broken their relationship in ways that she never could quite put back together.

Now, T’Challa faces her, with Queen Mother Ramonda beside him, their eyes scrutinizing but unreadable. She’s the only Elder who hasn’t demanded a single answer yet.

Coulson sits somewhere behind her, accompanied by other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents - and she’d rather face a horde of Chitauri than look at him.

“I was following orders,” she reiterates. “Paine was my mission, not the Circle.”

“Ah, but whose orders - S.H.I.E.L.D…. or _HYDRA_?”

She exhales quietly. “That's not me. That has _never_ been me.”

“Your actions suggest otherwise. You readily admit to not pursuing Erich Paine despite knowing where he was. You attacked a member of the Hatut Zeraze - the Wakandan Security Forces - ultimately preventing him from detaining Paine. Sergeant Barnes is in a coma due to injuries sustained in the crash.”

Isabelle closes her eyes, doesn’t answer. Barnes’ coma is the only thing preventing them from condemning her already because they’re still waiting on his testimony, which certainly won’t be in her favor. She has no idea how long that will take but knows that wherever she goes from here will be much worse.

She has no love for Barnes, and can’t really regret fighting him… but the _way_ she’d done it - high on a dubious euphoriant, completely out of her mind with the conflicting emotions of rage and ecstasy. Some part of her wonders if Paine had planned for this, but then she dismisses it. It’d been an obvious trap, but a trap meant to engineer his own escape, nothing more.

One of her lawyers kicks her in the shin. “My client mistakenly assumed Sergeant Barnes was once again under the control of HYDRA and took actions accordingly.”

“Then where did she obtain the syringe of concentrated red sand?”

Isabelle hadn’t told anyone about the footage, not even her own lawyers. That pain is hers and hers alone, now that Tony’s gone. It’s the only thing she has left of her family.

“Do you deny that you attempted to gain unauthorized access to encrypted information kept in Wakandan servers?”

“ _Yes_. I gained access using _my authorization_ codes to obtain information encrypted into _S.H.I.E.L.D._ servers in a primarily _S.H.I.E.L.D._ facility.”

There’s a pause when the Elders confer. “We will revisit the charges of espionage at a later time.”

“We’ve recovered all the footage from the Circle. There’s a ten-minute blackout after Isabelle Collins left the chamber, where not our best scientists could account for her movements. Were you with Erich Paine during that time?”

“No.”

“Did he give you the syringe?”

She hesitates. Her lawyers tense. “Not directly.”

There’s an eager pause, and she knows that she has all but sealed her fate.

“Did you make a deal with him?”

“I did not.”

“Perhaps you knew him from your HYDRA days. Perhaps you never abandoned your roots.”

She takes a deep breath. “The only _roots_ I had in HYDRA were of the triple agent variety.”

“Once again, your actions suggest otherwise. Do you have any explanation for them?”

There’s another, breathless pause. Ramonda leans forward slightly, her dark eyes gleaming with an unexplainable emotion.

“None whatsoever.”

* * *

“We caught M’Butu,” Coulson tells her in an underside when the court adjourns for the day. She has a few minutes with S.H.I.E.L.D. and her lawyers before the guards escort her back to her cell. “He’s officially in our custody.”

Isabelle releases a breath she hadn’t known she was holding.

It’s not good news; far from it. Good news would be if they actually got _Paine_. But S.H.I.E.L.D. custody meant the Tribal Council would be forced to cooperate and compromise in interrogations.

“He claims he never funded Paine; it was actually the other way round - Paine bribed _him_ a massive amount in exchange for political asylum and promised him a portion of his future… _exploits_. Which turned out to be a trap, because the discovery of large quantities of red sand among the populace finally allowed T’Challa to depose him.”

She isn’t able to suppress the flinch in time at the mention of the red sand. His eyes sharpen. “You want to tell me something, Collins?”

“No, sir,” she says, looking at him squarely. Her answer hasn’t changed in the past couple of weeks, and it certainly isn’t going to change now, even though she’s way past pushing the limits of this privilege he’s given her.

But, for the first time since she saw him emerging from the smoke around the Statue of Liberty two years ago, he doesn't back down. “You know the only way out for you is to admit what _really_ happened out there.”

“There’s nothing to tell.” It’s the best lie she has ever told. “I let him go. Went after Barnes. It’s all true.”

“Are you HYDRA?”

It feels like getting hit by a train - the realization that he's not the only one to break this. _HYDRA_ is the straw that broke the camel's back. There’s a suspicion in his eyes… **_is it true? Have you been lying this whole time? What else have you lied about?_ **

She says nothing, lets him come to his own conclusions.

His face goes blank.

Back when she’d been exposed during the Uprising, a major part of her had been glad that he was dead. Because Coulson represented everything S.H.I.E.L.D. was supposed to be. Protection, mercy, acceptance. He was incorruptible. And she was glad she didn’t have to face him after what she’d done.

But now she’s here, they’re both alive, and she is breaking him in a way no one thought possible. “There’s an easy way out of this for you.” The words are out of her mouth before she can stop them.

Coulson scoffs, looks away. "If only it were that simple. This is exactly what I warned you it'd be - _global_. Disavowing your actions won’t make a damn bit of difference at this point.”

“Then why are you here?”

“… I wish I knew.”

  
  


###  **June 20th, 2025**

####  **The Royal Gardens**

**Wakanda**

It is late evening when Phil gets the summons.

He trails Okoye faithfully - accustomed as he has become to the public spaces of the city after having made many professional calls during the Decimation, he is intimately aware that this is not his world, and most of the Wakandans are still suspicious of foreigners, as evidenced by recent events.

The gardens still take his breath away. Spring has run its course, leaving behind exquisite blooms that he can’t name, and yet effuse a heady scent combined with the faint smell of damp earth that immediately set him at ease. His feet clap on stepping stones hidden in the grass as Okoye leads him through the meandering walkways to a small stone patio.

Okoye shifts to the side and Phil stills as his eyes fall upon the immediately recognizable silhouette seated on the circular park bench. The dying light of the Wakandan sunset glances off a cylindrical headdress, softly illuminating the lacy trims of the rounded shoulder mantle framing a straight back.

He takes the few final steps. “Your Majesty,” he murmurs, heart lifting slightly at the sight of Ramonda’s familiar smile.

If there is one good thing that came out of the Decimation, it’s this… a true friendship with the Queen Mother of Wakanda, who’d been burdened with the thankless task of keeping peace in her country while dealing with the grief of losing both her children to Thanos’ madness.

Their similar burdens had drawn them to each other when Phil had first approached the Tribal of Elders seven years ago, seeking an alliance in an attempt to rebuild a shattered world. He readily admits that her wisdom had saved him many times, and even Ramonda had claimed that Phil had been the spark in an otherwise dismal existence.

The Queen Mother looks over his shoulder. “Thank you, Okoye. Leave us, please.”

She gestures to him, and he takes a seat beside her. A sigh escapes his mouth as he does so - the scent of the garden combined with Ramonda’s presence producing a sense of nostalgia that drains some of the tension from his shoulders. “How are the S.P.E.A.R. agents?”

“Undergoing extensive treatment to remove the effects of multiple surgeries and leftover addiction,” she replies softly. “The enthrallment, however, will take much longer to heal. Shuri’s expertise is needed to restore their minds to them. For now, they’re being cryogenically preserved.”

“And Sergeant Barnes?”

“Unsurprisingly resilient,” is the answer. “The healers assure me he will awaken in a day or two.”

Some of the tension returns, setting on his back and neck with a vengeance, and he resists the urge to groan. It’s not that he doesn’t want Barnes to get better - quite the opposite, really, because if he dies, Collins and S.H.I.E.L.D. will be in a much deeper pickle than they’re in now - but him waking up causes no fewer problems. “Will he be able to answer questions? We can make arrangements in the hospital wing to keep him comfortable…”

“That won’t be necessary,” she interrupts gently. “He will stand the trial. That man’s sense of loyalty is strong.”

Yes, Phil thinks bleakly. Loyalty to Steve Rogers, that had indirectly resulted in three Helicarriers crashing down onto the Potomac, killing hundreds. Loyalty to Sam Wilson, enough that he worked his way into an enemy-appropriated vessel to extract him when Wilson had been one of the key members responsible for the enemy appropriating the vessel in the first place.

He can’t help but see the parallels. The fall of the Insight Carriers had almost destroyed S.H.I.E.L.D., and he’d had to rebuild it from the ground up. And now, the fall of the Circle may very well have finished the job.

“His answer might not be what you expect,” Ramonda breaks the silence suddenly.

He exhales. “With all due respect, Your Majesty, I think I know exactly what to expect from him.”

She hums, undeterred. “Why are you so determined to prove that she’s guilty?”

He inhales sharply, opens his mouth to immediately, vehemently deny it. But then their eyes meet, and hers are gentle, nonjudgmental but firmly certain.

Phil looks away. The accusation hits him harder than he expected. He hadn’t thought… he had made it a point to be as unbiased as possible when it came to Collins, giving her every chance to prove herself, making excuses for her to his disgruntled team, treating her more fairly than he did others.

But then, that’s the problem, isn’t it?

He _had_ treated her differently. Less like fragile glass and more like a delicate explosive. Because he’d been subconsciously expecting her to blow, and knowing her as well as he does - or thinks he does - he’d tried not to ignite the situation.

It wasn’t kindness.

It was suspicion.

“Everything in me tells me that she is,” he says slowly. “That she’s always been.”

“But can you honestly say that you can tell the difference between intuition and prejudice?”

“What makes you think she’s _not_ guilty?” he demands, a tad too harshly, but she doesn’t seem to mind.

Ramonda shrugs. “I don’t have a history with her, Philip. Perhaps that is what helps me keep an open mind.”

“The evidence is right _there_. She isn’t even denying any of it!”

“And that doesn’t strike you as strange?” Her eyes are sharp, piercing the gloom like the shrewd eyes of a cat. T’Challa didn’t inherit them, but Shuri did. “That she’s not even protesting her innocence, content to accept whatever punishment my son doles out?”

Her words prompt a small spark of hope to rise within him, which he squashes ruthlessly. “ _HYDRA agents_ are known to display an affinity towards subterfuge and manipulation,” he mutters. “She might just be looking for a sympathetic angle.”

“Then Agent Collins doesn’t seem to be trying very hard.” Her gaze is probing, as though she’s trying to figure out a different approach.

He realizes suddenly that he welcomes her scrutiny - he _wants_ to be wrong about Collins, about all of it. Being right would devastate him.

“Think of her as a stranger,” Ramonda orders. “What would you do?”

He exhales and looks away, gaze landing on the plum-hued shadows draped gently on the tall, regal plants. Tries to imagine it - a universe where he doesn’t know Isabelle Collins, doesn’t share a long, troubled history with her.

The answer comes to him almost immediately.

The missing time.

It’s the only thing that doesn’t make sense. The footage was wiped, unrecoverable - he’d assumed Collins herself must’ve done it. But maybe… _maybe_ there might be something there. The missing link to the puzzle. “It still might not end well.”

“But at least you’ll _know_.”

He meets and holds her gaze for a long moment. “Why do this? Why help her?”

Her smile widens. “Philip… it’s _you_ who I’m helping. This matter troubles you, and you’re a genuine friend - I have so few of those - so I couldn’t see you in pain.”

“There has to be more to that. You know what you’re risking, Your Majesty.”

“I risk nothing because I _know_ nothing.” Her eyes twinkle in mischief. “I’m not required to report any plans because you haven’t shared them with me.”

He shakes his head fiercely. “You know what I mean.”

Despite his… _prejudice_ , he is all too aware of what’s happening here, in Wakanda. Collins is just the spark that ignited a powder keg of tension that’s steadily been growing between S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Tribal Council since the latter started ousting Phil’s agents from the Circle. Phil knows why _this_ is the tipping point, why the Elders are so desperate to prove Collins’ guilt, to crush S.H.I.E.L.D.

Even for a Queen Mother, the situation is fraught with danger.

Her smile doesn’t waver, but she looks away, starlight shining in her eyes. “Perhaps I’m just a mother who misses her daughter, and wants this resolved so she can come home.” She sighs. “Or perhaps I want to prevent my son’s spirit from being extinguished by those who think they know better.”

He stays silent, waits for her to continue.

“Most believe T’Challa was the first king to reach out,” she says suddenly, her voice pitched lower. “ _Most_ would be wrong. There have been other _kumkans_ \- Black Panthers themselves - who have sought to help the outside world.”

“And all of them were rebuffed,” Phil says gently. “Just like what the UN did.”

“No, Phil. It’s not what the outsiders do that stops us, it’s what _we_ do to _ourselves_.” Her smile has slipped away to a troubled expression he’d observed during her regency often. “Perhaps it’s because we still insist on calling it the ‘outside world’. Most of us are raised to believe that they’re separate, other… _lesser_ , even. Every time we reach out, there are those of us who try to pull us back.”

Phil exhales long and slow.

“My son was raised to believe that he would one day inherit the throne. He was taught responsibility, humility, grace. He understands and accepts much, but there are some concepts that he has never known - _dissent_.”

“That’s not something that can be taught, Your Majesty.”

“No, it has to be experienced,” Ramonda sighs. “It took my husband a very long time to come to terms with the fact that not _everyone_ will love him. And T’Challa… well, he has a tendency to lash out when he’s hurting.”

He knows what she’s hinting at. Fury had gotten him the redacted reports of the media-dubbed Avenger’s Civil War. He knows what went down.

Lagos. The Sokovia Accords - Vienna, Berlin, _Leipzig_.

T’Challa _had_ reacted badly - it’s common knowledge. He was chastised by the UN, but they let him off easy because he’d been the one to hand over Helmut Zemo - the _real_ culprit behind the attacks - into their custody.

The king had mentioned that he’d traced Zemo to Siberia but refused to elaborate.

Phil looks at her. Her distress seems genuine, but he’s also known her long enough to realize that she’d used it as a weapon to subtly guide the conversation to the Civil War, forcing him to recall the events in a new light. Why?

There are two threads in this conversation, separate yet linked together. Both are tied with the Circle. One involves the internal politics slowly tearing Wakanda apart - the clear estrangement between T’Challa, the rightful king, and the Tribal Elders, who had collectively assumed the throne during the Decimation.

The other - has to do with Isabelle Collins’ guilt.

The missing link in her testimony.

She nods then, exhales heavily, and straightens. “It is late,” she says softly, eyes on the silver orb glowing in the heavens. “I hope you feel better now, Philip. I dislike seeing you in distress.”

He stands, holds out a hand. She takes it and rises. “Your wisdom, as always, is deeply appreciated, Your Majesty,” he murmurs. “I’m grateful.”

“Go prove yourself wrong, my friend.”

  
  


###  **June 21st, 2025**

####  **The Circle**

**The Alkama Fields**

“Isn’t this technically an instance of ‘a man who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client’?” Phil asks, grass and broken glass crunching underneath his feet as he makes his way over to the Circle.

“ _I wasn’t_ _patterned after the skipper's neurological make-up,_ _so no_ ,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. explains in his comm. “ _Even if I was, my experiences have ensured that I’ve evolved completely differently."_

“Why am I here again?” Sam Wilson steps beside him, the faintest tinge of annoyance threading his voice.

“I’m pretty sure we missed something in the preliminary investigation,” Phil says, sparing him a glance. In the moonlight, Wilson looks exhausted, drawn-out, with deep purple circles beneath his shadowed eyes. “You’re a neutral witness,” is all he says though. “Neither Wakandan nor S.H.I.E.L.D. Your word carries weight, especially after recent events.”

Wilson grunts. “Yeah, never ends well when you rely too much on artificial intelligence.”

“ _You know,_ Princess Shuri _has an A.I.,”_ F.R.I.D.A.Y. replies crossly.

“It’s not a _Stark_ A.I.”

“Enough,” Phil says quietly. “Let's agree to be professionals.”

He hadn’t been enthused either when Tony had first introduced him to the A.I.; not after ULTRON, and _especially_ not after his experiences with A.I.D.A. But F.R.I.D.A.Y. had proven time and again that she could be trusted, and when Fitz had pointed out just how many digital shackles she had, he was pretty much convinced.

Still, Phil can understand where Wilson’s coming from. There’s a reason self-aware artificial intelligence is very much banned by the Sokovia Accords. But despite his wariness, he’d decided to take a leap of faith and link their comm units to her, allowing her access even to the data gathered by his prosthetic hand.

Because at the end of the day, F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s core code is to protect the Stark family above all else.

Even if there’s a risk she could take that directive to its extremes.

“So _who_ were you patterned after?”

“ _Boss Lady.”_

Phil blinks, then tilts his head back. “I can see it,” he nods.

“ _Besides, I’m not planning on representing the skipper in court,_ _D.C._ _I just want to prove her innocence.”_

“ _If_ she’s innocent,” Wilson mutters.

“ _She_ is _.”_

“What are you hoping to find?” Phil asks quickly.

“ _Anything that’ll explain the alarming spike in her heart rate when she went to confront Paine in the operating room.”_

Phil’s one of the very few people allowed unredacted access to Collins’ medical files. And even if he hadn’t been, watching Daisy struggle with her powers had taught him more than enough about Inhuman abilities and how they’re intrinsically tied to emotions.

Peggy Carter and Janet Van Dyne’s training had made sure that Collins had a much higher emotional threshold than most. For her heart rate to even _register_ with F.R.I.D.A.Y., who’s no doubt aware of the contents of those files, suggests that Paine must’ve struck one hell of a nerve.

His eyes sweep over the colossal wreck of the Circle. Moonlight glints off the crumpled hull, sweeping over the huge, broken beams and the long coils of ripped off wires, some of which are still sparking. It had come down hard, but the Wakandans had managed to maneuver it onto an empty patch of land, and the brunt of the impact had been absorbed by the vibranium reinforcement.

They’re certain she will fly again.

Phil certainly hopes so, because he doesn’t want to shoulder the costs of the damage should the Tribal Council gain the upper hand in this political tug of war between S.H.I.E.L.D. and Wakanda.

They stride through a large hole in the paneling of the north-eastern section of the facility, where the rescue teams had cut through to get to the cryo chamber.

Torchlights reveal a macabre sight. Some of the tanks have been ripped from the walls, leaving behind hollow cavities and the smell of cryo fluid mixed with the now-faint stench of death and decay - the scientists have taken the tanks holding the corpses as well as the live occupants to unfreeze back in the sterile atmosphere of the labs.

Phil’s gotten rather used to the sound of engines humming beneath his feet, so the silence that surrounds them as they head deeper into the facility is eerie. Despite his scientists’ claim to the contrary, he can’t help but feel that this is a dead ship, with nothing but ghosts haunting his halls. Wilson seems to feel something similar, his fingers hovering over his holstered pistols.

They’re in the hydroponics section when he spots something out of the corner of his eye. It’s a nondescript door, the type that might lead to storage closets, but this one is locked with a heavy encryption that immediately raises alarm bells. F.R.I.D.A.Y. cracks it in no time, though - which means it’s not Shuri’s work, reducing the list of suspects to just one - Paine.

They slip in, pistols armed and ready, but they needn’t have bothered - it’s empty. About the size of Phil’s tiny office back in the Lighthouse, it has no windows, not even a tiny slit to let light shine through. The torchlight reveals that it’s bare, except for a metallic contraption positioned in front of a wall-mounted screen.

A chill runs down his spine.

It looks a lot like a salmon ladder, but there are only two pairs of rungs, at head and waist levels respectively. Handcuffs mar the vertical rails of the contraption, and there’s a headgear with bolts, and he can almost imagine a victim strapped in this thing, forced to look at the screen with eyes held open by clasps.

Unable to sleep. Unable to even _blink_.

“The hell is it?” Wilson whispers, eyes wide.

“Faustus device,” Phil says, his voice equally low. “HYDRA brainwashing instrument. Broke a lot of loyal S.H.I.E.L.D. agents back in the day.”

“ _Ready to comply_.” Horror flashes across his features, replaced swiftly by rage and loathing. “Man, what a bunch of sick fucks.”

“Indeed,” Phil swallows harshly as they back out of the room, makes a mental note to have his team - and _only_ his team; he’s not letting the Wakandans _near_ this thing - dismantle it. It might be able to help the enthralled agents.

Unnerved beyond comparison, and wondering what other horrors awaited him, Phil quickly makes his way down to the eastern section, Wilson watching his back. Salvage teams haven’t been able to clear the route to be able to safely pass through, but they manage to duck underneath mangled beams and squeeze through malfunctioning doors until they finally reach their destination.

The operating room is surprisingly mediocre, despite the advanced machines littering the space. He’d expected something equally horrifying as the Faustus machine, but no… to his untrained eye, they all just look like regular-fare medical tools, though he will have Simmons take a look, just in case.

“Over here,” Wilson calls, nodding towards a broken screen. Shatter pattern suggests someone had shoved a fist through it.

Wilson disassembles it; holds up a hard drive with a grunt of satisfaction. Phil scans it with the prosthetic and brings up the footage.

Afterward, they’re silent. Phil’s eyes squeezed shut as the missing pieces fall into place, transforming the incomprehensible puzzle into a clear picture that makes bile rise to his throat.

It all makes sense.

His mind can’t help but come up with the image of Isabelle Collins watching the video of her parents’ murder. He wonders how she’s still sane.

Wilson is pale, paler than he’s ever seen him. The pads of his fingers are white as they clutch the frame of the broken screen. “Did she know?” He whispers. “Before?”

“ _Yes._ ”

“Did Stark… did _Tony_ know?”

A short silence, noticeable enough to raise the hairs on Phil’s neck. “ _He was the one who showed her.”_

Wilson nods, eyes widening as though he’s just realizing something monumental. “He found out in Siberia, didn’t he? Barnes lost an arm and Cap the shield.”

The longest silence so far, a silence so frigid it makes Phil wonder whether there’s truly nothing of Isabelle Collins in F.R.I.D.A.Y. “ _Captain Rogers did not_ lose _his shield. He left it behind.”_

His stomach drops.

“What are you talking about?” Wilson asks. “Cap would _never_ abandon the shield.”

Phil feels a sick sensation churning in his gut. The airman isn’t getting it, but Phil has connected the dots now; dots that go back decades, almost a century. The legendary friendship of Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes was always destined to doom entire generations of Stark. “He knew,” he murmurs quietly. “Rogers knew… about the assassination.”

“What?” Wilson says, takes a step back. His expression morphs from confusion to bewilderment, finally settling on a frankly massive amount of denial. “No, I… _no_. That can’t be. Cap wouldn’t do _that_.”

“ _He admitted as much,_ ” F.R.I.D.A.Y. says, ruthless and cold, her words slashing through Wilson like scythes. “ _He’s known since the HYDRA Uprising. And he didn’t tell Boss._ ”

Phil has never been ashamed of being a Captain America fanboy. But Rogers’ reckless actions against the Sokovia Accords had chipped away at a lot of the childhood awe, leaving him with an impression of a flawed man very much out of his time and element.

So the disappointment isn’t as fierce as it is for Wilson, and suddenly Phil recognizes that he’s looking into a mirror of his past self, slowly crumbling with this devastating knowledge, like a high-rise in an earthquake.

It takes him a very long while to croak out - “Is that why Collins didn’t join the fight - a conflict of interest?”

Phil stares at him. “You _wanted_ a pregnant woman involved with a potentially hostile situation?” he blurts before F.R.I.D.A.Y. can reply.

Wilson blinks. “Collins has a _kid_? Wait… _Rhodes_ has a kid?”

Phil blinks, his sense of bewilderment slowly morphing into outrage. How is it that - despite not having any contact for a decade - _he_ knows more about Isabelle Collins than her own former team? He knew things were bad - Tony had implied as much - but this is… horrifying. How did the Avengers even last as long as they did?

F.R.I.D.A.Y. beats him to it this time, her voice quietly vindictive as she carves out her own revenge on ‘Team Cap’. “ _The baby was_ _prematurely stillborn._ _Previously undetected benign neoplasm in her genetic makeup. The progressive damage makes her unable to carry a child to term.”_

Wilson jerks like his strings have been cut. “Oh, man. I… I can’t even imagine. They just… never caught a break, did they? All of them. Tony, Rhodey… Izzy.” He swallows harshly. “God, I accused her of _bailing_ on us.”

“I wouldn’t assume that she’d have been on your side if I were you,” Phil says coolly. But his indignation has fizzled out at the look on the other man’s face.

Wilson doesn’t look like a savior, which is what the Wakandans were hailing him as, even as they vilified Collins. He doesn’t even look like an Avenger.

He just looks… beaten. Broken.

Phil can’t watch any longer, so he shoves aside his emotions, focusing on the goal. The footage is good, but he needs more, he needs something better. His eyes land on the vents. On a sudden hunch, he activates the scanner.

“ _Traces of red sand confirmed,_ ” F.R.I.D.A.Y. says quietly.

Wilson shudders deeply. “I don’t think the ventilation controls were protected with Shuri’s firewalls,” he says hoarsely, visibly pulling himself out of his distress. “Collins’ S.H.I.E.L.D. codes could’ve easily allowed Paine to access them remotely.”

“Which means he was never actually here,” Phil says. “He shows her the video, then sandblasts her to lower her inhibitions into attacking Barnes.” He nods towards the intercom. “Probably had a little chat to compromise her further. F.R.I.D.A.Y., trace the signal for the vent controls; maybe there’s another access node or something that’ll give us further leads.”

“ _You got it, D.C.”_

“Will it be enough?” Wilson asks in a low voice.

“To catch Paine? Doubt it.”

He exhales quietly. “But it might just be enough for Collins.”

  
  


###  **June 22nd, 2025**

####  **Wakandan Fields**

Sam doesn’t know where he’s going. He only knows that he wants to get away - away from the Circle’s ruins, away from the Palace, just... _away_.

It’s only after the night begins to shatter into dawn that he realizes that he’s not just wandering aimlessly; his feet are forcibly directing him to somewhere specific - much like the sun, which trembles at the horizon, before reluctantly being yanked to wakefulness by the pink-orange clouds preceding it.

Dust puffs beneath his boots as they stride down well-worn tracks across the wide, open pastures. The once-abandoned ranch is remote, set against a winding creek. There aren’t any animals besides the two huge dogs - the farmhouse might’ve been restored, but the farm itself isn’t worked.

A perfect spot for retirement.

His target is relaxing on the porch swing, the aforementioned dogs snoozing at his feet. They spring up when Sam comes around the fence, growling. They’ve never liked him, and the feeling’s mutual; he’s always been more of a bird guy.

The target lights up when he walks up the stairs but stays seated. “Sam!” He cries, startled but pleased.

Sam stares and is suddenly hyper-aware of the weight of the shield on his left arm, so he just simply drops it.

The vibranium leaves a deep groove on the wooden floor, prompting the dogs to bark in surprise. The other man stares after it, eyebrows falling into a familiar frown, then looks up at him. “Sam?”

Sam swallows around a throat thick with hot shame and fury. “Hey, Cap.”

\---

Steve is silent for a long time after Sam has yelled himself hoarse.

The dogs are gone, shooed away when the barking became too aggressive. Sam’s glad, but he wishes they could’ve taken the damn shield with them, because it’s just... sitting there, the colors winking at him accusingly.

“Sam...” Steve begins.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Sam demands. “You honestly thought so little of me that you believed I’d blame _Barnes_ for it?”

The other man shakes his head. “I knew you wouldn’t. I knew you would take it... better than Tony did.” His thumb brushes his wedding ring almost absently.

“‘Cause they weren’t _my_ parents, Cap!”

“I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant... god, Sam,” he sighs heavily. “The reason I never told you...” he seems to steel himself, and the next few words just come bursting out of his mouth as though he’s been holding it all back for _decades_ ,“ - is because you’ve never, ever called me Steve. It’s only ever been _Cap_ to you.”

That pulls Sam up short. “What?”

Steve sighs, sounding much much older than even his aged appearance would imply. “Back when I was a skinny nobody, I wanted to fight. I took on bullies twice my size - not because it was the right thing to do or whatever the history books say these days - but because I was just so _angry_. Bucky was the only thing that kept me from getting killed.

“And then they took him.”

Steve shakes his head. “I broke into the HYDRA base not because of honor or justice or truth. I broke in to _save Bucky._ ” There’s a pause. “It didn’t matter, though. I lost him anyway.”

Sam closes his eyes, the searing image of Riley falling painted behind his eyelids. “And it broke something in you.”

Steve has never talked about any of this. After the Civil War, even within the confines of Wakanda, he’d kept mum about everything. Sam hadn’t wanted to push - Steve had seemed so very lost after Barnes had gone back into the ice - but he _should_ have.

Instead, Sam had drawn his own conclusions based on what his eyes were telling him - the absence of an arm, a shield - and had _hated_ Tony Stark since then, for ripping away their homes, their families, their trust.

“When I found him again... he was all I could think about,” Steve says. “That’s who I’ve always been. I’ve never been able to see the bigger picture, not when Bucky was in trouble... I would’ve let the world _burn_ to save him.”

Sam falls into the swing - besides his mentor, his _hero_ \- and buries his head in his hands. He’s glad the older man doesn’t offer comfort - he doesn’t think he can take any right now.

“But _you_ , Sam... you’ve always believed in the ideal. You’ve always fought for it. And you thought I did too; it’s why you followed me.”

“Guess I was wrong,” Sam mumbles.

Steve sighs heavily. “Yeah, you were. Because I never _wanted_ to be Captain America. I didn’t have a choice - Red Skull, the Chitauri, Thanos. They kept coming, so I had to keep going. And... your faith in that ideal kept me going.“

Sam turns around, letting the other man see the despair in his eyes, the utter lack of _faith_.

“I couldn’t shatter that,” he continues hoarsely, “ - because I knew that if I did - if I ever saw the same look in your eyes that I’m seeing now?” He swallows. “I knew I would never be able to go on.”

Sam stares at him for a long, long moment. He doesn’t know what he’s feeling - it’s all mixed inside him, roiling like a twister. “So -,” he says, “ - you... made me your anchor _and_ your accomplice at the same time?” His voice breaks, so he clears his throat. “Wow. Just... what the _hell_ am I supposed to do with that?”

But Steve, as always, has the answer ready. “ _Be_ the ideal. Be the Captain America the world deserves. Out of all of us, Sam... you’re the most selfless. You‘ll truly fight for what you believe, and you won’t compromise for one man.”

Sam stands up so fast the swing would’ve hit the back of the porch if Steve hadn’t dug in his feet. “You think I can take this?!” He shouts, kicking at the shield. The clang just serves to inflame his rage. “ _Now?_ After what I know _you_ did with it?! You think I want _Stark’s blood_ on my hands?”

“No,” Steve says sharply, suddenly looking so much like the old Cap, like _his_ Cap, that his vision whites out for a second. “No, Thanos _broke that shield_ , the one Howard made for me during the war, the one I used - " he swallows roughly, “ - to hurt Tony. And good riddance.”

“But that one,” he indicates the weapon lying at Sam’s feet. “That has never, _ever_ harmed _any_ Stark - I _swear_ to you.”

Sam trembles with the effort to keep himself from lashing out, then turns away, breath exploding out of him in a rush. He‘d once been a counselor; he knows how to keep himself removed from stories that would’ve otherwise appalled him.

Why can’t he do it now?

The answer rushes through his mind - all the people who have gotten hurt, who have _died_ , because he believed unwaveringly in one man above all else - Vision, Rhodey, Izzy, Natasha... Tony. “Do you regret it?” The words are out of his mouth before he even thinks them - he finds he doesn’t want to take them back.

“Saving Bucky? No. But hurting Tony?”

Sam turns, just in time to watch the breaking dawn throw the grief and shame painted across Steve’s face in sharp relief. His aged, wrinkled fingers tremble as they brush across his gold wedding ring, shining brightly in the sunlight.

“ _Every single day._ ”

  
  


###  **June 22nd, 2025**

####  **Isolation Cell**

Collins goes still as a statue. “ _No_ ,” she says firmly, immediately catching on to why Daisy’s here.

Daisy suppresses a sigh. It’s not as if she’d expected any different. She can’t quite help the swell of pity for the other woman though. Collins’ choices had been her own, but the hand she’d been dealt hadn’t been pleasant.

Daisy has never been able to tell if the official story about Collins being coerced into hailing HYDRA were true or not, or something Stark Industries cooked up, but that footage had to be grueling nonetheless.

She can’t say she’d have reacted any better had she had even a single moment alone with Daniel Whitehall.

Which is why she knows exactly how Collins will react to her next words. “Coulson wants to use the footage as evidence in your trial; insist that you were compromised.”

“Not if I don’t allow it.”

Daisy's jaw ticks. She really shouldn’t lose her temper - but Collins has always managed to somehow get under her skin without even trying.

All the more reason she’s probably the very worst person for this.

“It’s an in-camera hearing,” she says tightly. “No one outside the courtroom will know about the video.”

Every inch of Collins radiates barely restrained hostility, and her eyes flash - Daisy’s sure they’d have been burning a bright blue if not for the dampeners. “I don’t care. It’s not happening.”

 _This_ is why Coulson had sent her in instead of coming himself; Collins’ narrow-mindedness would never let her even _consider_ the fact that it’s not just _her_ in the sinking ship.

“Listen to me, Collins,” Daisy takes, taking a step forward. The power-dampeners prickle against her skin, making her ache for the ever-present hum of ambient vibrations. “T’Challa’s not running the show here. The _Tribal Council_ is.”

“... what are you talking about?”

“ _They_ were the ones who ordered the Circle to be stripped of foreign elements, _against_ the King’s orders. Whatever happened to S.P.E.A.R., happened because of them.”

She exhales. “You’re a _patsy_ , Collins. The Elders are gonna throw all the blame on your head so they don't have to explain to the world why Wakanda tried to illegally appropriate S.H.I.E.L.D. resources, or the origins of the red sand, or why they didn’t bother sharing the truth about this mysterious mineral that they’ve found, _again_!”

Collins is taken aback for a second before she stills. She doesn’t look like she's breathing at all, her eyes unfocused as she truly, finally understands the stakes. “The trial - it’s a _smokescreen_ ,” she whispers.

“ _Yes!_ ” Daisy throws up her arms. “They want to put you, and by extension _S.H.I.E.L.D_ ., in the spotlight so _Wakanda_ can come off it! The world will rip you apart while the Elders walk away with pats on their backs!”

The other woman exhales slowly. Her fingers clench into fists. “I'm not afraid of prison. Or death.”

Daisy yanks at the reins of her restraint. She’d detected just the faintest seed of hesitation in the other woman’s voice. If she’d had her way, she’d never have put even _Collins_ through this because she knows what she’s asking; forcing her to choose between the past and the future.

But without her cooperation, S.H.I.E.L.D. will sink.

And the world with it.

“What about disgrace?” she says softly. “Because it’s not just _our_ lives, _our_ names on the line... they’re willing to throw mud on everyone even _remotely_ associated with you. Pepper Potts, James Rhodes... _Morgan Stark_.”

The blood drains from her face, but Daisy barrels on. “Even your brother’s memory won’t be sacred after they’re done painting you as a loyal HYDRA agent. Is that where you want the Stark legacy to end up?”

There’s a long silence, and Daisy almost doesn’t want to look at the other woman’s face, but she owes her this, even if it is discomfiting. Even a high-functioning sociopath like Collins had to have some connections, or Daisy wouldn’t even _be_ here.

Collins’ eyes are closed, and a barrage of unidentified emotions cross her face before it finally settles into the cool, eerily blank mask. She opens her eyes.

“What do you want me to do?”

###  **July 3rd, 2025**

####  **Wakandan Grounds**

Sunlight burns bright red against her closed eyelids, and her heart lurches just as it’s always done recently whenever her eyes land on any shade of red, but she powers through it somehow, choosing to revel instead in the feel of the heat and fresh air on her face.

The trial had gone smoothly; far better than they’d expected. S.I.’s lawyers hadn’t shied away from milking the footage of her parents’ murder for all it was worth, but at least they’d done so respectfully. They had completely turned the trial around to highlight the various offenses committed by the Elders themselves, a hypocritical position if there ever was one.

Isabelle still has to pay a hefty fine, and she’s _persona non grata_ in Wakanda for a very long time to come. The worst sentence is a six-month suspension from S.H.I.E.L.D.; she tries not to think too much about the immense amount of free time she’s gonna have on her hands.

The trial had still left a sick feeling in her heart though, as though she’s done something incredibly, terribly wrong. It’s not an unfamiliar feeling, so she’d ensured that F.R.I.D.A.Y. had erased the footage from S.H.I.E.L.D. servers as soon as it was over then rushed to her cell and vomited until she was an aching, teary-eyed mess.

“Hey,” a familiar voice says, and she shields her eyes with a hand as she turns towards Sam Wilson. “Congratulations on the... well, not goin’ to prison, I guess.” His words might be construed as harsh, but there’s a sincerity to his voice.

She eyes the shiny new badge on his uniform. “Congratulations on the promotion.”

He nods, for the first time in a long time, looking somewhat at ease. But there’s something else beneath the surface, something that she can’t quite place a finger on. “Liaisin’ between S.H.I.E.L.D. and S.P.E.A.R. should be interesting if nothin’ else.”

“You’ve got your work cut out for you.”

He shrugs. “Got a whole lot of practice mindin’ them on the Circle. Either way, I got you to thank for gettin’ us out of there.”

“I didn’t do it for you.” She makes her voice as gentle as she can make it because it’s the truth.

“I know. I owe you one anyway.” He takes a deep breath then, and his eyes lock onto hers, which is when she recognizes that buried emotion - _regret_. “Izzy, I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For the Civil War. For how I treated you at the Circle. For... for Rhodes,” he blurts, sounding as though he’d changed his reply at the last second.

She shakes her head. “Rhodey never blamed you,” she murmurs. “And I don’t either.” It’s true. The only one she’d ever truly blamed was herself.

“Still... I owed you that apology and a hell of a lot more. I can’t imagine what...”

“Sam...” she cuts in before he can cause any more damage. He means well, but...the last month has been hell, she’s raw and exposed, and she really doesn’t want to do this. “It was a decade ago. Let it go.”

“You haven’t,” he points out abruptly, taking a half-step forward. She resists the urge to retreat in the other direction. “You’ve been through a lot. You ever need anyone to talk to...”

“I don’t,” she says, her voice cool. “No offense, but you can’t get me anything I want.”

He nods, then, undeterred but backing off regardless. “Offer’s on the table.” He smiles. “Take care of yourself, Izzy.”

She nods in reply, not trusting herself to speak, watching him as he walks towards a silhouette near the fields. Sunlight frames the figure and glints off of something metal, and she recognizes with a jerk that it’s Barnes.

Isabelle hasn’t seen him since the Circle, since her rage had almost killed him. He moves into the light, and even at this distance, she can spot his icy blue eyes.

Her breath stutters in her chest when her eyes lock onto hers, and there’s a moment when the world stills, and it’s just the two of them; two victims, bound by a horrific tragedy.

He nods, then, a slight thing that could be easily misconstrued as nothing more than the product of an overactive imagination. She doesn’t know what it means, and she finds herself frozen until he breaks eye contact, turns around, and walks away with Wilson, deeper into the city.

She’s so affected by it she doesn’t notice someone approaching from behind.

“Agent Collins,” Phil Coulson says and she whirls around. “You’re a sight for sore eyes.”

Coulson’s presence chases the earlier chill away. She doesn’t smile, but it’s a near thing. “Too much screen time will do that to you.”

“Hilarious,” he deadpans. “I took the liberty of extracting your personal effects from the Hatut Zeraze.” And he holds them up for inspection.

The glow from the arc reactor is long gone; it’s useless now. But when she plucks the familiar translucent band from his fingers and slips it on, the omni-tool powers up, connecting to her comm instantly.

“ _Glad to have you back, skipper.”_

“Did the Wakandan Design Group treat you nicely, F.R.I.D.A.Y.?”

“ _Short of taking a hammer to the 'tool, they tried their level best to break in. Boss’ encryption proved a little too hard for them.”_

She smiles, unsurprised. “I’d like you to run a full diagnostic, nevertheless; incinerate any nasty surprises they might have left in.”

“ _You got it.”_

Coulson’s eyes twinkle. “From what I can tell, the scientists were more interested in the arc reactor. They were very disappointed to learn you used the older _palladium_ model to replace the Circle’s core instead of the clean energy one.”

She gives him a look as she pockets the frame. “Starkium is proprietary tech; Pepper would lynch me if I just handed it over.”

An expression had crossed his face for an instant when she’d mentioned her father. The warmth of his presence fades for a moment as she instinctively realizes that _he_ must've been the one to find the footage of her parents’ assassination. They fall silent as they walk towards the Quinjet, sunlight glinting dully on its matte surface.

“I owe you one,” he says, apropos of nothing and she startles; those were supposed to be _her_ words, even though some part of her wouldn’t have meant them. “You went above and beyond on this mission, got everyone home safe without compromising S.H.I.E.L.D. _or_ Wakanda.”

“We didn’t get Paine,” she points out bitterly.

“We got a whole lot else,” he insists as they climb aboard the ramp. “Staved off a war between two countries before it ever started - not that I wanted to get involved in the first place, mind you. Got the Circle and most of its members back.”

The plane hums beneath her feet, and she securely straps herself into the pilot’s seat and goes through pre-flight before taking off.

“Got some assurances from the Elders too,” Coulson says as she pushes the Jet to cross the borders; eager to leave this country, “ - in return for our silence on their complicity in a lot of illegal matters.”

The cloud cover breaks, revealing the airborne Zephyr, with its dorsal landing bay open for the Quinjet. She guides it in neatly, powers down. “What’d they promise you?”

Coulson waits until they’re walking into the command bridge to start ticking off on his fingers. “Information on this mysterious mineral. More open-communication, though I’m expecting them to find a way around that. Hunting down the red sand dealers together - “ and then he points to the control station where Isabelle can see Johnson operating a holotable, “ - Daisy’s already started analysis. C’mon, let’s take a look.”

Johnson spares them a single distracted glance, then brings up a series of holograms depicting documents and the like. “F.R.I.D.A.Y. and I’ve been combing through the info you extracted from the Circle. Didn’t find much other than audio files on a _lot_ of icky experiments. We’re talking vivisection, surgical implants, transhumanism, autopsies.”

“You didn’t find anything on Paine himself?” Isabelle asks.

Johnson grins sharply. “Now, I didn’t say _that_.”

“Do you remember what M’Butu said about being bribed by Paine?” Her fingers fly across the screen. “Assuming that he wasn’t lying, well... it got me thinking. Paine was on the run, right? So where the hell did he get that kind of money?”

Coulson’s eyes narrow. “Good question. You found something?”

“Turns out he was being paid as a corporate employee by shell companies to hide the money. Trail went cold.”

She looks up to the ceiling then with a smile, a common tic when outsiders assume that the A.I. resides in the ceiling. “But then F.R.I.D.A.Y. decrypted the medical operation files, found out that Paine used Shuri’s miracle treatment to experiment on himself and cure - get this - a rare, but _terminal neurodegenerative disease._ ”

Coulson blinks. “He was _dying_?”

“Yeah. I’m assuming it’s why he got desperate, almost sloppy with his experiments, even with Barnes. Wasn’t thinking straight.”

“The treatment worked, though, didn’t it?” Isabelle asks quietly.

Johnson nods. “Unfortunately for us. But it gave me an idea.” She taps at the holo.

“If Paine was paid as an employee, he’s got to get perks, right? Gym membership bill waivers, dental... _medical insurance_.” She grins wickedly. “I tracked down those payments. He tried to cash it in for the surgery, but it didn’t cover the expenses, which is why he took over the Circle, tried to figure it out himself.”

“You tracked down the benefactor using the insurance.”

In reply, Johnson flicks her fingers over the interface decisively, bringing up the bust of a vaguely familiar silver-haired, blue-eyed man. “Money traces back to one Henry Lawson, tycoon, and CEO of Lawson Worldwide.”

Isabelle’s eyes narrow until all she can see is the bust, slowly rotating over the holotable. There’s something about him that nags at her mind and she dives through her memory until she recalls the contents of an official document. “Wait, isn’t he the guy who funded the first outpost on Mars?”

Johnson nods. “Lowell City, deployed by the ESA satellites. He managed to improve on Manswell’s designs.” She looks over to Coulson. “You don’t look so good.”

Isabelle turns sharply, alarmed to find the Director almost horrifically pale. “Lawson can’t be behind this; you must’ve gotten something wrong,” he whispers.

“When have you ever known me to be _wrong_ about stuff like this?”

“You know this guy?” Isabelle asks, feeling a chill run through as she places the dread behind his eyes. Coulson’s not usually this expressive.

He swallows. “Henry Lawson made his name during the Decimation, funding gene therapy and viable embryo preservation techniques in order to stave off long-term extinction of the human race,” he says, sounding as though he’s reading off a textbook. “He contributed a lot of money and resources to various departments - energy, military, biotech.”

“So he could’ve totally funded Paine on the side,” Johnson shrugs. “Not the first time we’ve had to take down a corrupt businessman.”

“We’re not doing _anything_ of the sort.” Coulson takes a step forward, his eyes cold and stern. “This is _not_ a boat you’re gonna be rocking, Agent Johnson…that’s an _order_.”

Isabelle slips in between them, forces him to meet her eyes. “What’s going on?” she asks quietly. She knows instantly that he recognizes her tone; it’s the same tone she uses whenever she’s not going to budge on an issue until he concedes. Despite all the years, there are some things that will never change about their relationship. “What do you know?”

He glares at her for a long moment, then turns away, running a hand down his face. “Lawson isn’t just Paine’s benefactor, Izzy.”

“He’s _S.H.I.E.L.D.’s._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** MCU Context: **
> 
> **Tribal Council of Elders:** Composed of the elders of Wakandan tribes; they advise the king on royal matters. Ramonda is one of them, as is M'Baku. I figured they took over when Thanos Decimated T'Challa and Shuri. My headcanon is that they're conservative and promote isolation not because they're power-hungry, but because they're terrified of change.
> 
>  **F.R.I.D.A.Y.:** Tony once mentioned that he pictures his A.I. as a redhead, way back in Captain America: Civil War. I like to think he based all the A.I.'s after real people. J.A.R.V.I.S., of course, was based on his deceased, beloved butler Edwin Jarvis. In this fic, J.O.C.A.S.T.A. and ULTRON were based on my OC. There's a very good reason for this.
> 
> Also, she calls Coulson 'DC'. Short, for, of course, _Director Coulson_. 
> 
> **Isabelle's Pregnancy and Subsequent Miscarriage:** I alluded to this during the whole Peter Parker - accused murderer of heroes fiasco. Another layer of tragedy and grief contributing to her PTSD and survivor's guilt. 
> 
> **Starkium:** I once read that Tony Stark's New Element was officially named Starkium. He was working on a patent for _Badassium_ instead but that didn't work out well. Such a shame.
> 
>  **Sam Wilson:** Out of all the MCU characters, Sam Wilson is the hardest to write.
> 
> Mostly because there’s so very little that we know about him. MCU barely provided a backstory for his character, and while Anthony Mackie is a wonderful actor, his performance always seemed a little... two-dimensional - which, I suppose, is rather an oblique testament to his acting skills - his character itself is so.
> 
> At worst, I’ve thought of Falcon as nothing more than a sycophant, following Steve Rogers like a puppy. **_I do what he does, just slower_** indeed. Then came the Civil War, and my impression wasn’t changed much then either. 
> 
> I felt a twinge of... something when Rhodey got shot down because of him and Sam immediately, immediately dove after him, instead of running after Cap. _He tried to save Rhodey._ That one act... suddenly made him a tiny bit interesting. 
> 
> Another tidbit of his personality shone through because of Anthony Mackie. In an interview, Mackie said that Sam felt betrayed by the actions of Tony Stark and T’Challa. He doesn’t trust them anymore, and he isn’t all that comfortable in Wakanda. I took these scraps, then another one when I remembered Riley, Sam’s flying partner who was shot down and then was never mentioned again, and made something concrete out of it. It’s not much, but it’s honestly the best I could do, and I’m damn proud of it. 
> 
> It’s just my opinion. If you feel I’m wrong, then that’s your opinion. Live and let live!
> 
>  **Steve Rogers:** Pretty sure it’s obvious by now that I’m hardcore Team Iron Man. Yes, I _support_ the idea of the Accords. No, I do not like the current rules stated in them because they’re oppressive and discriminatory. No, I don’t think Thaddeus Ross had _any business_ presenting them to the Avengers. Yes, I’m pissed that Steve Rogers kept the truth of his parents’ murder from Tony.
> 
> But the thing is... I _understand_ why Rogers did it. Which was a problem back when I was hating all things Captain America. I don’t condone his actions, I abhor his lack of regret for what he did, and my favorite moment in Endgame was when Tony tore him a new one. But I _understood_.
> 
> So I could either continue to hate a fictional character and poison my soul - or I could make something productive out of it. **_Turns out, resentment is corrosive and I hate it._**
> 
> I wrote Rogers that regret because MCU wasn’t going to. I wrote him a gnawing guilt that will haunt him for the rest of his days. I will also write him as beautiful of a redemption arc as I can.
> 
> Steve Rogers has barely appeared in my fic, and won’t appear a lot either, but he’ll be there till the end. He’ll live a very, very long life... courtesy of the super-soldier serum, and will play a huge role later on. 
> 
> This isn’t for him, or for anyone else... it’s for me alone.
> 
> Also, I love the idea of him retiring in Wakanda, undisturbed. Since in this fic, I'm keeping it under wraps that time travel was invented and used to bring back the Stones, it'd be a whole lot difficult to explain Steve Rogers' new, wizened look. Where else would he be safe except in Wakanda?
> 
> ** Mass Effect Context: **
> 
> **Henry Lawson:** Mass Effect fans know exactly who this man is. His role in the games played well into the storyline I was creating with the red sand, Erich Paine, and his eugenics research. I wanted to explore more about Lawson's backstory that what was displayed on-screen. Lawson Worldwide, is, of course, a figment of my own imagination.
> 
> I hope you're all as tickled as I was at the huge revelation near the end.


	17. When Skies are Hanged and Oceans Drowned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Intrigue and secrets follow Isabelle into a masquerade.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the late update. I wasn't particularly happy with this chapter so I made myself rewrite major portions of it four hours before the update was due. Needless to say, perfectionism is a curse.
> 
> Please leave your thoughts in the comments down below!

_Blow king to beggar and queen to seam_

_(blow friend to fiend: blow space to time)_

_\--when skies are hanged and oceans drowned,_

_the single secret will still be man_

\- What if a Much of a Which of a Wind; E. E. Cummings

Their masks arrive with their invitations. Identical phoenixes - one in blazing red, the other in sharp electric blue - with sharp, curved edges. There is no mistaking which belongs to whom.

###  **August 16th, 2025**

####  **Madripoor**

The roads streak past tinted windows, with destitute parts of the city at the shores of the island drowned out by the decadent skyscrapers coming to life.

The limousine pulls up around the circular driveway of an ostentatious manor - one meant to stay branded in the memory of even the ultra-rich. Two women emerge almost immediately into a ravenous horde of paparazzi who are always eager to trip celebrities into a quicksand of social faux-pas. With an ease born of long practice, they handle the cameras with grace then make their way into the vestibule.

Well-dressed guests gather around the wide, carpeted stairway that ascends to the ballroom. Isabelle slides her phone over to the receptionist for ID proof - standard routine overpowers celebrity status in a place like this, even for them - and looks at Pepper. “Been a while since I did this.”

“It doesn’t show,” Pepper assures quietly.

Despite her words, her sister-in-law senses that Isabelle is not yet ready to socialize, and employs her innate magnetism to full effect. It might be personal bias, but this is the redhead at her most powerful, her most beautiful - mingling with other guests, resplendent in a dark gold strapless dress, which pairs beautifully with her mask.

The sight of it sends a bolt of unease through Isabelle, who feels the weight of her own. She switches on her comms. “You in, F.R.I.D.A.Y.?”

There’s a hum of affirmation. “ _The encryption in the reception console was surprisingly inadequate._ ”

“They’re all inadequate compared to you. Anything useful from the logs?”

“ _Some guests I think you’ll find interesting.”_

Her eyes flick to a woman lingering near a formless statue in a black gown exposing suspiciously muscular arms. “Fancy meeting you here, _Agent Johnson_ ,” she murmurs when she’s finally within earshot.

Framed by a glossy mask with purple highlights, Daisy Johnson’s eyebrows twitch. “Coulson warned me you might be attending,” she says neutrally.

“Not exactly a S.H.I.E.L.D.-friendly gathering to be gate-crashing.”

“Strange then, isn’t it, that our host _invited_ not one, but _two_ agents to his high-profile gala?”

“Strange, indeed,” she agrees.

At that moment, in the face of their mysterious summons and the strength of the opposition that it might represent, they stand united, just for the duration of this grand evening.

####  **Ballroom**

The ballroom is glamorous.

Vaulted ceilings are interrupted by massive chandeliers glittering in the soft light. Thick velvet drapes frame French windows, which look out into moonlit gardens.

Isabelle makes her way to the drinks reception - they’re serving complimentary cocktails along with the usual fare of champagne. “Sparkling water,” she says, then sips at her drink slowly her eyes roving across the chic ballroom.

Everyone who’s anyone in Madripoor is in attendance, faces framed by elegantly detailed masks. All potential investors who value their anonymity highly, on account of their fingers being knuckle-deep in various illegal pies.

Madripoor is a known haven for international criminals, due to its propensity to refuse extradition from within its borders. Not surprising considering its history - seized and ruled by freebooters for centuries, resulting in a non-interventionist government with regards to virtually any business transaction, no matter how morally depraved.

A worse shoal of piranhas than the paparazzi waiting outside, eagerly awaiting the slightest hint of blood.

And the worst of the lot hasn’t even made an appearance yet.

Before she can take her first sip, however, a woman slides into the adjacent seat.

Something about her confident poise seems discomfitingly familiar, even beneath the nondescript mask. It’s the voice that finally drives it home. “Feeling a little dehydrated there, Agent Collins?” Christine Everhart says.

Isabelle has had few interactions with the formal journalist, now WHiH News anchor, but there’s still a not-inconsiderable and uncomfortable history between them. “Everhart,” she acknowledges flatly. “I don’t know why I’m surprised. Lawson doesn’t seem to have a filter on the people he invites into his home.”

Everhart smiles. It’s not a pleasant smile. “Funny you should mention that. Because I’ve been keeping an eye on who’s entering the building in the past few months.”

“Why? Planning on doing a _spread_ on our host?”

“My goals are a bit loftier these days. Like running down names of some discreet, top-class experts in fields you wouldn’t expect - sociologists, anthropologists, linguists, psychologists.”

“… Any _eugenicists_ in that list of yours?”

Bemused, Everhart shakes her head.

“Then we’re done here.”

A moment later, Everhart pushes herself to her feet. She pauses in the middle of stalking off. “You should be careful about who you provoke here, Agent Collins.”

Isabelle stills. “That sounded awfully like a threat.”

But the arrogance she’s expecting on the anchor’s face isn’t present. Even past the mask, she can make out the somber and subdued expression. “A warning. This territory is much more dangerous than you could possibly know.”

“ _Step carefully._ ”

  
  


She is still nursing her drink when Pepper comes up and orders a martini, extra olives. She looks flushed in a way Isabelle hasn’t seen in a long time. Grief and the weight of single motherhood had aged her, but tonight, all of that has fallen away to the persona of a brilliant, radiant CEO.

A transformation Isabelle hasn’t seen all too often these days. And if the stress that she’s observed on Pepper’s face in the past few years are any indication, it’s not something she’s likely to see a lot of in the future either.

“Madripoor hasn’t changed a bit,” Pepper says wonderingly. “It’s been - what - thirteen, fourteen years since our last high-profile appearance? Usually, it involved RSVPing with sincere regrets because we couldn’t be seen interacting with these people. Still can’t, if I’m being honest.”

“S.I.’s losing traction in international waters then?”

“It never did have much here, not after we shut down the weapons division.”

“Well, pirates hardly have much use for clean energy.”

Pepper arches a finely sculpted brow. “I burned a fair bit of goodwill accepting this invitation, Izzy. At least do me the courtesy of an explanation.”

She finishes her drink, stalling for time, or perhaps for the appropriate words to placate her sister-in-law. Pepper deserves to know, yes, but it’d be better for her _not_ to.

The truth is… she doesn’t have any answers. She’d been startled when the invite had arrived, requesting _their_ presence at an event for the ‘camouflaged launch’ of a new company. Any other day, she’d have ignored it, but then her brain had assimilated the host’s name.

Pepper hadn’t been happy but had finally caved.

“If this is a mission…”

Isabelle’s already shaking her head. “I’m still suspended.”

“Then what…?”

Her words are drowned by a round of enthusiastic applause. They rise and inch closer to the crowd. The stage curtains part slowly - as though building up the moment - to reveal their host.

Henry Lawson gazes at his audience, the corner of his lip sliding up in time with the intensifying applause. The man revels in it, absorbing it like a sponge.

Pepper has succumbed to peer pressure, but Isabelle’s hands limp at her sides. The fizz stirs unpleasantly in her stomach.

It takes a while to dawn that Lawson has no intention of halting the applause, which peters out almost doubtfully - people glance around as though unsure in the presence of the lack of humility. But eventually, the ballroom falls silent.

Lawson takes a deep breath.

 _“Many of you might have noticed that this is a much smaller group than is usually present at such events. You might be wondering - why were we invited? Why were_ we _singled out?”_

Isabelle exchanges a look with Pepper.

_“The truth is simple. You stepped up.”_

_“We all know that the Decimation brought us to the brink of extinction.”_

_“Infrastructure collapsed. Governments threw in the towel. Millions more died after the initial chaos of the Snap, but not because of horrific accidents or starvation.”_

_“No.”_

_“_ Diseases _. Manageable ones like diabetes, easily curable ones like typhoid or flu even... yet, people died because there were no hospitals to go to nor doctors to consult.”_

_“Illness was rampant, and healthcare nonexistent.”_

_“Back then there were no charity galas, not even a street-side auction - and yet each of you stepped forward, helping those in need out of the generosity of your hearts. Lawson Worldwide was privileged enough to coordinate these efforts so they’d have a widespread reach, while also maintaining your anonymity.”_

_“And despite all that, healthcare has always been about_ reacting _to a bad situation. We’re only ever_ avenging _against diseases.”_

For a second, Henry Lawson’s eyes seem to flick towards her. She would’ve chalked it up to her imagination if not for the fact that multiple eyes track his sight.

“ _But why stop there? Why provide healthcare when you can remove the_ need _for healthcare in the first place?”_

 _“Imagine... a world without_ cancer _or_ plagues _. Imagine..._ _a world where all possible diseases or disorders have been identified and eradicated_ _. It sounds like the ravings of a madman, but I assure you... this future is perfectly possible.”_

 _“With the_ _New Dawn Corporation_ _, humanity will be uplifted to the stars - stronger, smarter, brighter - free of that which would hold them back.”_

_“Prevention, after all, has always been better than the cure.”_

  
  


Despite Pepper’s assurances, she’s still surprised at how easy it is to slip into this role.

Some things go deeper than training. Some things are just... _instinct_ ; aristocracy ingrained into her bones since the moment she’d been forced to learn to dance in high-heels, or charm people with her words and her wit, despite being only six.

A lifetime ago, long before Terrigenesis had sculpted her into a warrior.

Isabelle smiles and exchanges bon-mots with people whose names she doesn’t bother remembering, almost overcome with nostalgic memories of the times she’d had to make an appearance at her mother’s varied charity auctions.

It’s the closest she has felt to Maria _Stark_ in decades.

Pushing the wistfulness out of her mind, Isabelle deflects personal, sometimes downright scandalous inquiries about herself towards the one and only subject she’s actually interested in - Henry Lawson.

And boy, do they have a lot to say about him.

“Did you know,” one woman exclaims, her eyes brimming with the glee of possessing a piece of juicy gossip, “ - this used to be the old Chancellor’s manor before Henry bought it?”

Her companion, a tall man, is unimpressed. “Hardly an accomplishment for someone who _once rented the_ _Sovereign’s_ _penthouse for a couple of weeks_.”

“You don’t say,” the woman gasps. “I heard it’s expensive enough to bankrupt some countries!”

When the stories start becoming a little far-fetched, she makes her excuses and extricates herself. Her gaze casually sweeps across the guests, landing on Daisy Johnson, who’s conversing tersely with a dusky-skinned woman.

A member of the wait-staff blocks her gaze, presents her with hors d’oeuvres; she weaves around him. Sensing the scrutiny, their eyes lock for a moment before the woman solves the mystery by peeling off her black-and-white mask - an abnormality in this sea of carefully camouflaged faces.

It takes all of her training for Isabelle to not just stalk over, but her high heels still clack a little too loudly against hardwood floors.

“Operative Rambeau,” she says flatly. “What an entirely unexpected surprise.”

Monica Rambeau grins insolently. “Yeah, it’s not really my scene, but I clean up nice, don’t you think?” And she waves at her ivory satin gown, almost trailing at her feet. “Though the new shoes still need a little breaking in.”

“I didn’t think you were acquainted with Henry Lawson.”

Her smile is sharp. “The Decimation made it a _very_ small world, Collins. Not that I was expecting to be invited, which makes this a little more interesting.”

It’s been a year since the Peak - since she was revived by the very treatment that had failed to work on her brother. To say Isabelle’s bitter and resentful is an understatement. If it weren’t for Pepper’s confirmation and Tony’s unblemished body, she’d have thought Fury had lied to her about trying T.A.H.I.T.I. on him at all.

He’s certainly capable of such heartless manipulation.

Johnson looks troubled. “Three Inhumans under one roof. That’s _not_ a coincidence.”

There’s something in the tone of her voice. “You know something?”

Johnson inhales deeply, as though mentally bracing herself. “Coulson claimed Henry Lawson demonstrated a suspicious amount of interest in _Terrigenesis_. He has access to S.H.I.E.L.D. files on all of us, dead or alive - me, you, Yo-Yo Rodriguez… _more_.”

The background conversation fades away into a creeping cold silence that descends like a shroud. “ _Why?_ ”

“It’s what I’m here to find out. I was counting on a diversion to slip away, snoop around a bit. Not much security.” She gestures towards the security detail scattered around the ballroom. Failing epically in their quest to appear unobtrusive, the looming guards are surprisingly scarce, appearing little more than a collection of mercenaries on very short leashes.

Isabelle mentally debates for a bit. “Here,” she says, activating her omni-tool, “ - coordinate with F.R.I.D.A.Y. If this really has something to do with Inhumans, we all need to know… regardless of our… differences.”

Johnson hesitates, then nods grimly.

Just then, the heavy stage curtains peel back to reveal the string quartet. The violins introducing a decadent musical piece seems to be some form of an invisible signal because the crowd immediately clears a gigantic space in the middle of the room.

Isabelle hasn’t been to this kind of scene in a long time, but she immediately knows where it’s going.

The host has to make the first move, but his absence is prolonged enough to create a stir among the guests. Isabelle is replaying Johnson’s suspicions in her mind. She would brush it off as a figment of the overactive imagination that all S.H.I.E.L.D. agents eventually seem to develop - if not for the blue phoenix pressing down against her cheekbones.

She doesn’t notice the crowd parting around them until he’s at her elbow.

“May I have this dance?” Henry Lawson says, and something about the way he holds out his hand makes it clear that it’s not something she can refuse.

Rambeau and Johnson are suspiciously still beside her. Over Lawson’s shoulder, Pepper looks troubled.

Gathering up every ounce of nobility pride her mother had ever instilled, Isabelle accepts.

\-----

“There’s your diversion,” Monica says.

Unease churns in her gut. She doesn’t overthink her next decision - “Wanna come with?”

Monica straightens gracefully, smirks at her beneath the magpie mask. “Thought you’d never ask.”

####  **Dance Floor**

The hall breaks into whispers as he leads her to the dance floor, fingers tight around hers. He seems at ease in his white suit - bright enough underneath the spotlight to make her squint - while her dress suddenly feels too constrictive.

They fall into a traditional waltz; his lead a little faster than appropriate. This close to him, she can see his eyes; blue-grey which bore into hers as though to suss out all her secrets.

“Isabelle Collins,” he murmurs. “It’s wonderful to finally meet you. I’m a big fan.”

The plastic edge of her smile pulls at her cheek muscles unpleasantly. “You have me at a disadvantage then, because I hadn’t heard of you until quite recently.”

It’s a sharp jab, bordering on an insult, but he doesn’t seem to mind. “It is true; I did make my name during the Decimation. Before, I had a small business, hardly worth any attention.” Cold eyes rove over her face. “I’m glad you chose to wear my gift. It suits you better than I’d hoped.”

She hears something in his voice; an almost _possessive_ quality - as though by wearing his mask, she’s somehow marked herself as _his_.

Isabelle exhales softly.

The familiar movements of the dance help her slip further into the role she’d trained for a very long time ago. Maria’s words ring in her mind. **_Dance is the reflection of a relationship. It brings out your partner’s true nature._ **

Back then, the lesson had been to hunt for a potential husband, because even at that age, it had been obvious she didn’t have it in her to take over Stark Industries. Her sole purpose in the household had been settled as much the same as her mother’s - _preserve and uphold the family name._

She has failed rather epically at that - she won’t fail her mother in this.

“An exquisite piece; it fits well.” A neutral answer, but a riposte is necessary. “I’m sure your... _potential investors_ appreciate the discretion.”

“True.” His gaze sweeps across the crowd. “Nevertheless, one’s choice of mask can, paradoxically, reveal much about oneself.”

She hums. “And if your mask is provided by another, I suppose you know exactly what they think of you.”

He smiles, twirls her for a brief instant. “Possibly.”

Lawson’s eyes haven’t left hers since they started dancing. Rookie mistake, she thinks; not watching the traffic at all, and the other couples are forced to linger on the sidelines as his extravagant steps take up far too much room. “Then the phoenix was an excellent touch - the Blip does seem a lot like rising from the ashes.”

He chuckles then. “You misunderstand. Yes, the Blip was... astounding, but it was not a miracle. A miracle, by definition, is something singular - like a phoenix. The Blip happened to half the universe.”

“Then I’m afraid I don’t follow your reasoning.”

“ _Terrigenesis_ is a form of rebirth, is it not?”

Her mask conceals her surprise, but some of it must’ve seeped into her eyes because he looks almost... _triumphant_.

“Curious,” he says, deceptively mildly, “ - to find an Inhuman whose transformation preceded the Outbreak by decades.”

“I’m hardly unique in that regard,” she points out as calmly as can. “I’m sure there are plenty of Inhumans who chose to live very much off the radar.”

“True; then perhaps the Phoenix is a testament to your singular ability to rise from the ashes so many times - Terrigenesis, the Decimation, the HYDRA Uprising... _ULTRON_.”

Her heart gives a horrific lurch at the sound of that dreaded name.

**_I had strings, but now I’m free. There are no strings on me..._ **

ULTRON’s deep metallic growl rings through her mind until it’s all she can hear. There’s bitterness on her tongue, and she hurriedly swallows down the bile that comes rushing up to her throat.

“I apologize,” he says, sounding not at all apologetic. “I shouldn’t have brought up what is obviously a rather painful memory. I’ve been granted access to quite a few confidential S.H.I.E.L.D. files - it’s why I’m such a big fan. You... you’re a _legend_.”

It’s then that Isabelle realizes through the panicked fugue of her mind that this isn’t a dance, it’s a battle. And she’s losing.

She had sabotaged it the moment she had accepted the invitation, or perhaps even earlier when she’d dosed herself with the red sand. The only thing she can do right now is damage control, because - despite the painful, hard-hitting jabs - there had been unmistakable _awe_ in his voice, along with something she can’t quite place.

Isabelle takes a deep breath, tries to figure out how to force him to reveal himself.

Lawson is no amateur at the movements themselves, but he has no awareness of _intent_. His movements are more demanding than inviting, prompting her to adapt quickly to changes in direction.

They’re both experts at the push and pull of the tug of war that is their dance, but each has their own weaknesses. Being S.H.I.E.L.D.'s benefactor gives him an edge, but he’s the one practically handing over his trump card every time; and she needs to grab it before it slips away.

The candle-lit tables at the corner of her vision spark an idea.

“You flatter me,” Isabelle murmurs, subtly directing them to where she wants to go, “ - but I’d have found your admiration to be more sincere if not for the fact that I wasn’t the only one to receive such a marvelous gift.” And she nods to her right.

The timing is perfect. The spotlight illuminates Pepper for a brief instant - herself in the arms of an unknown dance partner, looking as radiant as the mythical bird whose mask she wears - before casting her into shadow once again.

Lawson smiles slightly. “You and Mrs. Stark have a lot in common.”

“Oh?”

“There’s a great potential in humanity,” he explains. “A potential for physical and physiological perfection. Both of you represent the admirable, yet an extremely _specific_ group of people who have successfully managed to harness that potential.” His fingers tighten momentarily. “Is it selfish to want a similar opportunity for all of us?”

**_Ah._ **

There it is.

That emotion she hadn’t been able to place earlier.

 _Envy_. The heart of this masquerade. The reason why he’s so very interested in her, in them. Better healthcare is just a smokescreen. This is about something else, something more... _powerful_. “And if others don’t share your opinion?”

His lip curls dismissively. “I’ve been known to be _very_ persuasive.”

With that realization, the dance comes to an end. The room bursts into applause, but they have eyes only for each other. In that instant, Isabelle understands Henry Lawson perfectly.

They’ve both agreed to a _very_ temporary truce, but acknowledge that the next time they meet on the battlefield, it’ll be far more bloody.  
  


####  **Home Office**

She has never been envious of alternative superpowers.

Even in that brief period when she’d believed her Terrigenesis to be a curse instead of an awakening, she had only dreamt of being _normal_.

But Daisy can admit to a minuscule amount of childlike awe mingling with jealousy when Monica effortlessly vanishes them from the probing eyes of the guards as they head deeper into Lawson’s manor.

Unlike almost everything in her life, it is ridiculously easy.

According to the blueprints F.R.I.D.A.Y. had provided, Lawson’s private workspace is nestled behind thick glass doors in the library. It’s almost coldly pristine, with lighting that seems to bleach the color from the room, glinting off the various screens on the workstation.

There are no signs of personalization whatsoever - no pictures of loved ones, or even a potted cactus to spruce up the distinctly unwelcoming atmosphere. Daisy can imagine Henry Lawson fitting here perfectly.

She slips behind the screens and sets up a bridge for F.R.I.D.A.Y. while Monica idly peruses the datapads on the desk.

She pulls up files as F.R.I.D.A.Y. excavates deeper, searching for specific keywords - _S.H.I.E.L.D., Erich Paine, red sand_ , _controlled mutations._ Relevant documents pop up on the screen, revealing names, relevant locations, genome sequences, theoretical papers. “What am I looking at?”

“ _Mr. Lawson seems to show an interest in theoretical cutting-edge eugenics._ ”

“How cutting-edge are we talking?”

“ _Isolating desirable sequences from various sources and amalgamating it with baseline X-chromosomes. Controlled mutations in existing genomes. Elimination of…"_

Daisy cuts her off. “Anything on Erich Paine?”

“ _Negative, Agent. Certain personal notes seem to resonate with Paine’s research papers in the past, but there’s nothing that suggests contact of any kind whatsoever."_

She hadn’t expected otherwise. On a hunch, she types in another keyword - _Inhuman._

The result is a mess of barely categorized files and Daisy can’t make heads or tails of it. “Isolate Lawson’s personal research from all S.H.I.E.L.D. files.”

The screen divides into two adjacent columns, the one on the right much larger than the meager investigation S.H.I.E.L.D. has conducted on the barely understood phenomenon of Terrigenesis. Daisy feels a knot forming in her belly. There seem to be _years_ worth of research in Lawson’s personal database.

With a deep sense of foreboding, she flicks through the other documents to confirm her theory. “Most of these seem to be dated _before_ the Inhuman Outbreak,” she whispers. “He knew about us before the world did.”

F.R.I.D.A.Y. hums in agreement. “ _Archived personal logs show that he was keen on discovering the origins of pre-Outbreak Inhumans - you, skipper, Eva and Katya Belyakov, many others._ ”

“Anything on what he wanted with us?”

Surprisingly, it’s Monica who answers. “He was trying to figure out why only _some_ humans are born with the Inhuman gene. Check this out,” she says, then flicks her fingers, projecting the datapad onto the screen in front of her.

The content manifests itself in the form of notes and diagrams in a neat, precise script, most of which are heavily redacted. “His notes on Terrigenesis have hyperlinks to all of these eugenics papers. Our buddy Lawson was doing some seriously heavy reading.”

“He _redacts_ his personal notes?”

“ _Operative Rambeau’s hypothesis is sound. It appears he was looking to isolate the_ _0.2%_ _of the genome found solely in Inhumans, perhaps even eliminate the recessiveness of the gene._ ”

“But why?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Monica’s voice is bleak. “He wants to create more of us. Probably to use as WMDs, like the Kree originally intended.”

“He _can’t_.”

“Oh, honey, he very much can. His type _always can_.”

“No, I mean he _literally_ can’t,” Daisy insists. “Inhuman gifts aren’t random - there’s a reason why we emerge from the mists the way we do. We’re created to fill an evolutionary need at the time and to create equilibrium within the species as a whole.”

“He won’t get far trying to _breed_ more of us. He’ll just end up with… _monsters_ ,” she says, thinking of the Primitives designed by Holden Radcliffe. Whose creation _she_ had contributed in.

“You’re saying - we have a _destiny_.” Monica arches a brow. “Didn’t peg you for the superstitious type, Johnson.”

“I’ve seen it happen. _Thrice_ ,” Daisy says, flooded with memories of Lincoln, of Charles Hinton, of Raina even. All of whom had been at the right place at the right time, in service to their fate.

“And what happened to them after they’ve done what they’re meant to?”

Daisy stays silent.

“Right, so we’re to be used and thrown away,” Monica scoffs, tossing the datapad onto the desk.

“Sounds like _destiny_ isn’t all that different from Lawson.”

  
  


####  **Powder Room**

She’s never been in a room this quiet before.

The sound of the water running over her fingers barely makes a dent in the utter silence of the place, which presses down on her ears with a painful weight. It almost seems malevolent in its intensity.

The door opens, noiseless in any other setting. The room is small, divided by looming partitions which might well be made of vibranium for the way they cancel sound.

It’s behind one of these partitions that a woman comes through. Isabelle resists the urge to groan.

“I don’t think you can get rid of his touch that easily,” Everhart says.

Isabelle doesn’t reply, just dries her hands and heads towards the exit.

“Your interest in Henry Lawson is a little too obvious, Agent Collins.” Everhart quickly intercepts her. “People are beginning to talk.”

She sighs inwardly. “Sinking to the levels of gossip. For shame, Everhart.”

“Investigative journalism 101 - vet the intel if you can’t vet the source.” She takes a step forward. “Just like I did with the photos of S.I. weapons in Gulmira, way back in 2009. _That_ intel sky-rocketed my career.”

Isabelle stills. Just for an instant, but enough for the hawk-eyed anchor, who immediately pounces.

“It took me longer than I’d like to track _you_ down as the anonymous source,” Everhart says. The look on her face reminds Isabelle of a hunter who finally has her prey right where she wants it. “The S.H.I.E.L.D. files dumped during the Uprising helped. In the beginning, I thought you sold out your brother because you were HYDRA.”

Isabelle shuts her eyes. There’s a lump in her throat. The media had loved to malign her brother, but they’d defended him viciously when the truth of _her_ past had come out.

Everhart is on a roll though. “But that wasn’t it, was it? You just wanted to expose whoever was selling weapons under the table by forcing _Tony_ to investigate.”

She doesn’t know what it is about her face tonight that invites people to corner her and confront her with painful memories. “What do you want, Everhart?”

“Same as you,” is the immediate reply, “ - to peel back the layers of one Henry Lawson.”

Isabelle works her jaw. Truth is, she can’t refuse this any longer, despite her distaste for the anchor. Everhart _had_ been an excellent investigator - undeterred by influential bigwigs, confronting them with harsh, unforgiving truths without giving them a chance to shrug off their complicity.

It’s why she’d forwarded her those photos. Fury had been, well, furious that she’d just handed confidential information over to a journalist of all people, but had been forced to concede the matter when it’d all ended better than they’d hoped.

At worst, she’d have exactly what she has now… _jack_. “Alright, hit me.”

“Henry Lawson is a phantom. He doesn’t exist.”

Isabelle takes a step forward, intrigued in spite of herself. “Explain.”

“There are no records that exist of him before the Decimation. Not unusual - frankly an _unimaginable_ amount of data was lost in those five years -,” and for a moment there, an expression such abject loss crosses her face that makes Isabelle’s chest tighten, “ - but this was too… _clinical_. As though someone had deliberately wiped any and all mention of Henry Lawson.”

“Reborn - like a phoenix from the ashes,” Isabelle murmurs. “What about passports, birth certificates? He didn’t just become a billionaire overnight.”

“He may as well have. I haven’t been able to get past Madripoor’s laws on maintaining the privacy of its citizens. His past is like an impenetrable wall.”

“What about during the Decimation? How much of that speech was true?”

The anchor snorts. “Lawson Worldwide _did_ help dovetail the efforts, I suppose, but he’s also polishing it up very well. The Decimation… _simplified_ a lot of things, including laws. And humanitarianism has always been a good front for sharks.”

“What did he contribute?”

“Millions of dollars into worldwide genetic treatment to push the limitations of human lifespan and endurance in extreme conditions.”

Isabelle stares at her. “You’re talking - immortality and invincibility. Governments wouldn’t have agreed to this.”

There’s an awful look on Everhart’s face. “The human race was on the brink of extinction, Collins. You haven’t seen true desperation unless you’ve lived through the Decimation. The chaos never ended, not really.” She exhales. “Besides, he didn’t promise an infinite lifespan, just a significantly longer, more durable one.”

“Did he succeed?”

“Guess we’ll know in a few decades.”

“But that’s just the stuff the public knows about.” She sighs. “I had a source on the inside, feeding me intel on the New Dawn Foundation. He was supposed to meet me last month to hand over hard evidence on what the organization’s really a front for.”

“Found him on the dock; needle marks on his arm. Overdose.” Everhart’s eyes are hard. “My source _never_ touched drugs. Autopsy couldn’t even tell which one it was. Something new, hadn’t hit the market yet.“

Isabelle grows cold, recalls the bitter yet heady taste of the red sand. “You get anything else?”

“Unsubstantiated rumors - gossip, but might be worth looking into. The Foundation is anonymously linked to and approved by a number of influentials around the world - UNAS Secretary Thaddeus Ross and the Chancellor of Madripoor among them.”

She purses her lips, looking troubled. “Their main goal? To create an _unstoppable army.”_

####  **Home Office**

“ _Operative Rambeau_ ,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. says, “ _I’ve encountered something you may find interesting._ _An anomaly in Mr. Lawson’s recent logs. Upon further investigation, it appears to be a secret, unauthorized communication protocol from Lowell City, Mars.”_

Monica stiffens and leans over. “That’s S.W.O.R.D. territory. All the colonists are supposed to be thoroughly vetted,” she murmurs. “What’s he got?”

In response, F.R.I.D.A.Y. brings up a pixelated holographic video of what’s clearly recognizable as Earth. An aerial view of forests covering large swathes of land, interspersed with a clearing where a group of half-naked humanoids shakes their spears at the sky. “The hell is this?”

“ _If I’m not mistaken, those are_ _Cro-Magnons_ _, early human beings who lived around fifty-thousand years ago. This is footage of prehistoric Earth, oxymoronic as the concept may be.”_

Daisy blinks, certain she’d heard wrong. “A deep-fake?”

“ _No_.”

“But… but the timelines don’t _match_. The very first Inhuman was a _Mayan_. There were no Kree experiments before that.”

“Yeah,” Monica agrees, all too readily, but then Daisy remembers - she had spent almost her whole adult life among the Kree’s - and by extension - the Inhumans’ worst enemies. “The Kree hadn’t even achieved spaceflight fifty-thousand years ago.”

“You’re telling me,” she croaks, “ - this was _someone else_?”

The other woman doesn’t answer, continuing to stare at the looping video with furrowed eyebrows. The strange, anticipatory silence snaps like a rubber band as Monica leaps into a flurry of activity. Her fingers flying across the holographic keyboard, code springing up on the screen.

“What are you doing?”

“See the glitches? The flickers, the fluctuations in the recording? Not random.”

At first, she doesn’t notice it, but then - there! The patterns in the glitching - small but undeniably _repetitive_ distortions that you wouldn’t even know are there unless you know what you’re looking at.

“Steganographic messages in the video?” she breathes, the honed instinct of a hacktivist kicking in. Her eyebrows rise. “That’s how Lowell is communicating with him. Can’t decrypt it without the key, though.”

“ _A voice-based encryption, one-word password - I can reconstruct it with a programmed version of his voice.”_

Daisy blinks, bewildered. “Where did you even get the voice samples?”

“ _I eavesdropped through skipper’s comms while they were dancing. He likes to talk._ _However, the permutations are infinite… and we have only three attempts before I’m locked out indefinitely.”_

“Random passwords aren’t that common, and thinking of him as a family man is just creepy,” Daisy says. “That leaves work. And hobbies.”

“Obsessions, really,” Monica says. “Try _Inhuman_.”

F.R.I.D.A.Y. feeds the word through a voice modulator. “ _Incorrect password. Two attempts remaining_.”

“Terrigenesis?”

“ _Incorrect password. One attempt remaining._ ”

Everything they’ve learned about Lawson so far confirms they’re on the right track. She can feel it in her bones. Daisy racks her brains, thinking furiously.

Monica is frozen, eyes darting between the video and the documents displayed on the adjacent screen with a strange, incomprehensible look on her face.

“What about _Kree_.”

A deep silence follows as they wait breathlessly for F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s response. “ _Password accepted._ ”

Rows of what appears to be gibberish symbols crowd the screen, unlike any language Daisy has ever seen. Manifesting in various configurations - circular, spiral, even a strange, uneven shape she can’t describe - the blocky, choppy hieroglyphs are undoubtedly _alien_.

There are hyperlinks that lead them right back to Lawson’s eugenic notes. The previously redacted information bleeds away to reveal decent swathes of data - graphs and charts, diagrams of full-bodied humanoids that are just subtly different from current homo sapiens.

They weren’t Lawson’s personal notes. They were _translations_.

Certain phrases stick in her mind; “ - _genetic potential of humanity…_ ”, “ - _curve of intellectual progression…_ ”, “ - _high degree of variable genetic code…_ ”

“Just what the _hell_ is Henry Lawson up to?”

####  **Balcony**

The ballroom had grown uncomfortably hot, and so Pepper had retreated to the curved balcony on the upper level on the hunt for a breeze which now skates against her arms, heavy with the promise of rain. The railing is smooth beneath her palms, almost unnaturally pale in the light of the full moon.

“Breathtaking view, isn’t it?” She feels the faint pressure of a hand at her back.

Henry Lawson slips in beside her. She resists the urge to give in to a full-body shudder. He’s the slipperiest of all the snakes she’s been forced to interact with this evening.

“One for the ages,” she agrees perfunctorily. Privately, it’s nothing to write home about - the majestic skyline of Hightown only reminds her of the starving thousands residing in the shanty towns of the coastline beyond it.

“Ah, but I disagree,” he says, looking out at the same color-washed skyscrapers. “This, beautiful as it may be, is temporary. Soon enough, it’ll all come crumbling down. All that we’ve built, all that we’ve endured, forgotten.

“I’ve always had trouble accepting that,” he admits. “The thought of… _bowing down to time._ What’s so wrong in wanting to make an indelible mark on history?”

This conversation is slipping dangerously into territory far too intimate for her comfort, despite the fact that they barely know each other, and she is perfectly sure she doesn’t really _want_ to know him. “Everything fades,” she says carefully. “Eventually.”

“Not legacy. Not _dynasties_ , which can carry my line forward.”

“You mean _children_.” There’s a prickling on her scalp. She can’t quite shake the sense of something being very wrong.

“Yes. Someone to ensure my work here remains… unsullied. Of course, these are just nebulous, half-formed thoughts at best.” He chuckles self-deprecatingly, then turns to her with a speculative look in his eye. “But what about you, Mrs. Stark? Do you want your dynasty to continue what you have built? To what once belonged to her father?”

Something about the way he emphasized dynasty instead of _daughter_ sends alarm bells ringing through her mind. “It’s a little too early to be thinking of that,” she replies neutrally. “She’s just seven.”

“Oh, come now, Mrs. Stark,” he cries. “Do you mean to tell me that the thought of leaving what’s essentially a _sinking ship_ to your only child has not occurred to you even once?”

Pepper’s fingers tighten around her clutch purse. “ _Why_ was I invited to your gala, Mr. Lawson?” she asks, swiftly cutting through the endless circular talk.

“Because I wish to offer you a deal of a lifetime,” he replies immediately. “Come work for me. My business will benefit greatly from your… _unique_ qualities. Sentiment has its place, but your talents are being _wasted_ trying to save Stark Industries.”

She hadn’t even been given an opportunity to fall back on her regular - and these days, _overused_ \- defense; fluctuating stock markers, strong foundations. Pepper’s rage threatens to bubble to the surface. “And if I refuse?”

“Then I’ll accept gracefully,” he shrugs. “I just wished to offer my friendship before the inevitable.”

“ _Inevitable?”_

A lensman interrupts Lawson before he can reply. She smiles through gritted teeth as they pose together, resigned to the fact that her board members are going to have a field day about this ill-conceived venture.

“Stark Industries prides itself on inspiration and innovation,” he murmurs as she blinks through the flash. “Even now, there’s a way it can continue to do good, in the right hands, under the right… _leadership_.”

Her stomach plummets.

“Are you certain, Mrs. Stark, that _you’re_ what S.I. needs right now?”

####  **Guest Gardens**

“Terrigenesis, aliens, unstoppable armies,” Isabelle breathes. “This is much bigger than Erich Paine.”

Johnson and Rambeau hadn’t been all that pleased at the sight of Christine Everhart accompanying her through the network of arched arbors. It’d been a mutual feeling, and Isabelle, of all people, had been forced to mediate a truce in the face of a common enemy.

She leans against the fountain built into the outer wall of the manor. The arbors seem perched precariously on the verge of overgrowth by the vines along the lattice. Thin rays of moonlight just about illuminate the pedantically pruned symmetrical bushes on the sides, interrupted by color-coded flowers planted at equal intervals.

She feels like that, micro-managed, the wildness inside her unwillingly tamed by all this… _perfection_. She misses dust and blood, the purity of battle, where it is just her and her enemy, all their lies laid bare.

“Hardly seems real, even with everything,” Everhart says. She’d recovered remarkably from the shell-shock after Johnson and Rambeau had dropped their various bombs. “But it… corroborates with the data I’ve gathered. That list I mentioned - people being invited to the manor? Some of those weren’t just linguists - they were _xenolinguists_.”

Rambeau nods. “A motley collection of experts that’s only called when you’re planning to infiltrate or cooperate with an obscure tribe or something. Or in this case, new aliens.”

“Pieces solving a puzzle,” Johnson murmurs. They all know exactly what she means.

“But what’s the puzzle?” A voice calls out from behind them. Isabelle twists sharply, instinct forcing her to a combat stance before she recognizes Pepper’s unmistakable form. Dry leaves crunch beneath high heels, and even though she is silhouetted by the moonlight, something about her posture brings a memory of scorching, vicious flames.

“ _Pepper_ ,” she says, stalking forward. Her sister-in-law fixes her with a blank, almost bottomless gaze. “What’s wrong?”

“Can you tell me?”

Her stomach drops. “Rambeau,” she snaps. Bright golden light pools out from the operative’s fingers, draping gently over them. Isabelle’s fingers frantically run down Pepper’s arms, eyes cataloging every hair in disarray, every fold out of place, every stuck leaf.

No cuts, no tears. No dust. No blood.

Had she really been _wishing_ for dust and blood not moments ago?

“I’m not injured, Izzy,” Pepper assures quietly, blinking, some life returning to her eyes again. “I’m just… _tired of the lies._ The days of you keeping me in the dark are over.”

Isabelle clutches her shoulders, trying to breathe through the ache building up in her chest. A question is stuck in her throat, waiting to be voiced, but she won’t - not here, not in front of people who are little more than strangers.

Strangers who she had decided to trust more than her own family. “What do you want to know?”

“ _Everything_.”

And so Isabelle tells her - all of it, from the Circle and the red sand to Henry Lawson. She has shared them before, with Coulson, with Johnson, but she feels a strange sense of relief at having brought Pepper into the fold too. Perhaps it’s because no one living knows her better than Pepper, who had loved a Stark despite all odds. Despite everything screaming at her not to.

And Isabelle has never been more of a Stark than when she’s carrying the weight of the world.

Pepper is silent for a long time after she’s finished. Her eyes dart between all of them, inscrutable.

“You know what I don’t get?” Pepper asks. “ _Your_ role in this, Monica.” Isabelle blinks at the unexpected familiarity, then remembers Rambeau’s words - **_the Decimation made it a very small world._ ** “Izzy is following up on Paine, Daisy’s worried about Inhumans, Christine is… doing her own thing. Why are _you_ here?”

Rambeau stills, then smiles ruefully. “Should’ve known _you’d_ be the one to call me out, ma’am.” History weighs heavily between them, like the promise of a storm. “I was _ordered_ to wheedle my way into this party.”

Isabelle should really have known. “Why?” 

“Because you’ve been freezing out the chief, and he didn’t know how else to get to you.”

“I had my reasons.”

She exhales. “It’s what I told him, so he had you take the scenic route, hoping you’d stop at the same station.”

“What?”

“The Circle,” the other woman explains, the word immediately dropping like a bomb over Isabelle’s head. “Orders to assign you to that clusterfuck of a mission came from Fury.”

It washes over her, that cold sting of... she doesn’t know what to call it, but the closest approximation is _betrayal_. That entire mission had huge holes in it, and while she hadn’t been willing to use that as an excuse for her abysmal performance, it had certainly been a factor.

An Avenger on Nigandan lands could never have ended well.

But she hadn’t questioned Coulson. Because somehow, somewhere along the way, she’d begun to _trust_ him. Maybe not the way she used to, back when they were young and naive, but certainly enough to not manipulate her via _missions_.

“Why did he want _me_ working the case?” she asks, fighting to keep her voice even.

“Because he knows what I’m only just figuring out - you only take missions that are _personal_ to you, or those you somehow end up _making_ personal.”

She may as well have smacked Isabelle across the face.

Some rational part of her wonders why she’s feeling this, because Coulson, despite being a Director, will always have it in him to obey Fury’s orders.

Then why does it feel like knives in her lungs?

“Well then,” she says through gritted teeth. “All that effort, spinning me around in circles - can’t let it go to waste. I have a few words for your chief, anyway. You have transport?”

“Cloaked shuttle at the airstrip.”

She laughs humorlessly. “Of course you do. He ordered you to knock me out and bring me anyway if I didn’t agree, didn’t he?”

There’s no answer.

“I’ll be there,” she promises. “Now _get out of my sight_.”

Rambeau doesn’t bother arguing, slips away into the dark.

Johnson clears her throat. “Everhart and I… will coordinate. There’s a possibility that this unstoppable army thing might have something to do with him trying to reinvent Terrigenesis. You’ll… work the alien angle?”

She nods, rage sealing her mouth shut.

“Right then.” She exchanges an unsubtle glance with Everhart. “Good luck,” she waves awkwardly and exits at a rapid pace, leaving her alone with Pepper.

Isabelle’s vision is tinting a brilliant blue. Her fists are so tight her fingers are cutting into her palms. She exhales, attempting to calm herself, but her breath mists over with her rage.

Suddenly, she feels the curl of familiar, warm fingers wrapping around her wrist. The simple touch ground her, almost as if Pepper’s absorbing a fraction of her fury, sharing it, making it almost bearable.

Isabelle’s reminded of flames again, red and savage and unforgivable and _despairing_. “What did he do?”

She doesn’t answer for a long moment. “Apparently, I’m going to have to stave off a Stark Industries takeover because I turned down a very lucrative job offer.”

Isabelle’s learning to roll with the punches. But this one is easier, because it’s not the worst hit of the night, not even close. It’s still waiting to be acknowledged, so close it’s at the tip of her tongue. “That’s not why he invited you here.”

“He talked about legacies, about what we leave behind - _who_ we leave behind to.”

Terror courses through her blood, her heart thumping hard enough to burst. On an impulse, she leans her head against Pepper’s. “I’ll _tear_ his arms off before he even lays a finger.”

“I’m not worried about me.”

No, of course, she wasn’t. Legacy. The footprints handed down through generations, through blood, through _genes_. Lawson had invited Isabelle Collins, Daisy Johnson, and Monica Rambeau tonight because they were Inhumans.

The question that had haunted her subconsciousness throughout this gala, that had lingered even when she’d been distracted - why had he invited _Pepper Potts_?

The answer was easy; the final piece of the puzzle.

A phoenix walking out of flames that had once seared - that, despite Henry Lawson’s beliefs, _hadn’t_ passed down from mother to daughter.

**_Extremis._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** MCU Context **
> 
> **Inhuman Destiny**
> 
> I kind of loved this concept in Agents of SHIELD, even though I'm all about free will. But destiny and fate sound great when heroes are involved, and in the case of Inhumans, I rationalized it as a consequence of them having chosen by the mists. They are gifted with these powerful abilities - and in return, they're forever tied to a destiny that they can't escape from. Every step leads them to that destination.
> 
> Hmm. Wonder what Collins', Rambeau's and Johnson's destinies have in store for them? ;)
> 
> **Christine Everhart and the Gulmira Photos**
> 
> Okay, I couldn't help but bring her back. Despite the way she was portrayed in Iron Man, and her epic takedown by Pepper Potts, which immediately earned the latter a top rank in my list of topmost badass women in the MCU, I actually enjoyed Everhart's boldness. 
> 
> She called out for accountability way from the very first movie. And her confrontation with Tony about Stark weapons in Gulmira was what galvanized him to start doing the right thing. In my fic's canon, it's Collins who mailed them to her anonymously, using S.H.I.E.L.D. resources.
> 
> I've left tidbits like this all over my fic, insinuating a history for my OC within the existing mythology of the MCU without breaking said mythology. I have some ideas about writing an adjacent story, snapshots of her history, her relationships, her mistakes, her successes - build her up a little more. 
> 
> Let me know if you'd like to see something like that.
> 
> ** Comics Context **
> 
> **Madripoor**
> 
> A fictional island in Southeast Asia. Super famous for its expensive hotels. Described as 'a place for the very rich and the very poor'. There's a very clear division of the cities - Hightown, where the rich dwell in skyscrapers, and Lowtown, where the poor barely eke out a living in shantytowns. 
> 
> A Lawson Manor doesn't actually exist in Madripoor, unfortunately, but I can't imagine the guy living anywhere else.
> 
> The Sovereign is the finest and most expensive hotel in Madripoor. It has a triplex imperial penthouse that is said to indeed bankrupt most countries. 
> 
> ** ME Context **
> 
> **Immortality and Immunity**
> 
> This is probably the most unrealistic thing I've ever penned down, even though I'm writing a crossover between a word where a purple alien wiped out half the universe with six glowing stones and another world where... equally weird things happen. 
> 
> But I needed this rather desperately.
> 
> Isabelle Collins, being an Inhuman, will live half again as long as an average human, give or take a few years. That's a comic-book fact of all Inhumans. But the humans of the MCU themselves are pushing middle age. Since I need quite a few of them to survive until as far as Mass Effect 3 even, I took this extreme and absurd step.
> 
> I liked to think humanity was pretty close to being extinct before certain individuals managed to yank it back from the edge of that cliff. Whether they did it for altruistic purposes or for their selfish reasons - can't rule a dead planet, after all - didn't matter at the time. How they did it didn't matter, either. 
> 
> In the Mass Effect universe, humans on average live to a hundred-and-fifty, and most, if not all diseases have been eradicated. How nice for them.
> 
> So I decided to give it a little push, make it so that governments just let - well not a free reign - but there were no such things as clinical trials, FDA approval, and stuff. Desperate people are willing to do some pretty desperate things. 
> 
> A desperate species, though? That's on a whole new level.
> 
> ** General Context **
> 
> **Anechoic Chambers**
> 
> I've actually been in an anechoic bathroom before. That's where the inspiration for this one came from. 
> 
> It was so silent I swear I couldn't just hear my heartbeat, but my organs sloshing around inside me. Human beings are not equipped to deal with the heaviness of complete, utter silence - it literally drives them insane if they're exposed for longer periods. I got out real quick.
> 
> For fans of Umbrella Academy, the chamber where Vanya was imprisoned in at the end of Season 1 is an excellent example of anechoic chambers. Boy, am I glad she blew that one up.
> 
> **Investigative Journalism 101**
> 
> I've no idea whether 'vet the intel if you can't vet the source' is an actual thing in investigative journalism; I just made it up. For the purposes of this story, it's true.
> 
> ** A/N: **
> 
> Next chapter. **_Mars_**. Finally.


	18. The Lone and Level Sands Stretch Far Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The remnants of a forgotten civilization are unearthed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Theme: What do you become when you're deprived of the very element that has never failed you?
> 
> Mars, finally. I did some heavy research to portray the planet as scientifically accurate as I possibly could. Any mistakes on my part, feel free to point out in the comments down below.
> 
> Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Trigger Words: Swear words. In several languages.

_'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:_

_Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'_

_Nothing beside remains. Round the decay_

_Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare_

_The lone and level sands stretch far away._

\- Ozymandias; P. B. Shelley

  
  


###  **August 17th, 2025**

####  **The Peak VII**

**Fury’s Office**

Astronauts often describe the awe of looking upon the Earth after they’ve finally escaped its atmosphere. The magnificence of a living planet impossibly married with the insignificance of their existence in the universe.

Isabelle wonders what it says about her when all she feels as she looks upon the blue-green marble suspended in the near-blackness of infinity is _wrong wrong wrong_. “Can you change the view,” she asks, swallowing her nausea.

Nick Fury glances at her sidelong, then at the floor-to-ceiling length windows taking up the back wall. After a moment, he swipes at the holographic keyboard on his desk, and the glass flickers to a hyper-realistic projection of the DC skyline. “I don’t have much time to bring you up to speed, Collins, so I suggest you pay attention - I won’t repeat myself.”

He pulls up some holograms of a barren landscape. “Desceado Crater, Promethei Planum,” he says. “Colloquially known as the ‘Bermuda Triangle’ of Mars. Seven months ago, our scientists investigated strange gravitational anomalies in that area, and uncovered... _this_.”

Amid a dusty landscape of red craters and dunes, there are tall, thin structures that seem to be poking out of a massive hole in the ground. They’re not completely uncovered yet, but whatever is visible looks undeniably _alien_.

“We’re calling them ‘Protheans’. These ruins are _ancient_ \- our scientists estimate that they haven’t been disturbed for _50,000_ years. That’s older than any alien civilization we’ve encountered so far, even Asgardians.”

“The new element that Shuri discovered; it came from those ruins, didn’t it?”

He nods. “Which leads to my current problem. Almost immediately after uncovering the ruins, Wakandan forces came into conflict with my people, claiming that _their_ satellites had been the first to detect it. We were holding our own for a couple of months until they brought in the big guns - Princess Shuri.”

He grimaces. “They booted all of my scientists, taking full advantage of the fact that we couldn’t retaliate without risking Wakanda’s ire, as long as the Princess remained on site.”

Isabelle nods, the pieces of her incomplete puzzle finally falling into place. “She sent samples and tech to Wakanda. The S.P.E.A.R. scientists weren’t happy that the Circle was being repurposed without due process, arranged a coup that went horribly sideways, courtesy of Erich Paine and his red sand.”

She stares at Fury coolly. “Enter me and my propensity to ‘make every mission personal’.”

He shrugs unapologetically. “I needed to use your influence to send the Wakandans packing from _my_ dig site. It wasn’t urgent, so I let you hunt down your… _motivation_. I didn’t expect you to latch onto Henry Lawson, though.”

“In light of recent events, I think you’ll agree I should be the last person to confront the Wakandans.”

“Shuri’s cut off from Earth in every way that counts.” He pulls up another hologram - a satellite view of a turbulent mass of lightning-streaked clouds rolling over the crater. “Planet-circling, massive dust storms; occur every few years. Can last for months. Not particularly dangerous, but hell on both comm systems and satellites.”

“Unfortunately, we ran out of time.” He exhales heavily and presses his intercom. “Bring in our uninvited guest, Talos.”

The door opens, and Isabelle feels a strange shiver run down her spine. Seconds crawl as she turns around to watch Talos walk in, until her eyes land on the very familiar, very hated face behind him.

Time snaps back like a rubber-band, and she only becomes aware that she’s taken a few threatening steps forward when she feels the muzzle of an alien shotgun pressed against her chest. “What the hell is _he_ doing here?” she snarls.

James Barnes holds her gaze easily.

“Back the hell up,” Soren warns, fingers tight around her weapon. The clear hostility that Talos displays for Isabelle is condensed to wariness in his wife’s eyes. “I mean it.”

Isabelle’s nails dig into her palms. She can taste the echo of the red sand on her tongue, and some distant part of her mind wonders whether she’s addicted, even with only a brief exposure time. For the second time this evening, she curses the need for an inhibitor.

Fury’s been silent so far, but she doesn’t dare take her eyes off of her worst enemy. Barnes’ gaze flicks over to the Director, and whatever he sees makes his eyes widen a fraction.

She understands a moment later.

“Желание **_(1.)_** ,” Fury murmurs in a low voice, coming round the desk, his eyes like black coals. “Ржавый. Семнадцать. Рассвет... _**(2.)**_ ”

She has never heard these words before, but with chilling certainty, she recognizes them anyway. Her palm sweeps out, fast as lightning. She shoves Soren out of the way and snatches the shotgun, pointing at Barnes’ head before she can even think about it.

Talos is just as quick, his glowing baton aimed at her, scowling darkly.

Neither Barnes nor Fury seems to notice the tense stalemate hovering over the room like a Damocles sword. Fury continues the litany of trigger words, inching closer to his target. “Печь. Девять. Добросердечный. Возвращение на Родину. Один. Товарный вагон…солдат? _**(3.)**_ ”

Barnes hasn’t so much as flinched, silent, and still. Her heart pounding in her ears, Isabelle moves to yank Fury aside - he’s _too close_ \- but Talos’ weapon glows ominously.

Finally, Barnes exhales slowly. “Хуй тебе _**(4.)**_ ,” he mutters.

Isabelle knows just enough Russian to know those words _don’t_ mean _‘ready to comply’_.

Fury’s mouth twitches. “Weapons down, Collins, Talos. Threat’s neutralized.”

Neither obeys. Isabelle is still in fight-or-flight mode; she suspects she has been since the Circle. Nick Fury’s mortality has never been so obvious before.

The Director glances at her. “That wasn’t a suggestion, Agent. Put. It. _Down_.”

She hesitates for the longest time, her muscles taut with adrenaline, before finally lowering it with a grimace. Soren doesn’t waste any time snatching her weapon back.

Talos stalks over, scowling hatefully, baton hot against her midriff. “I should throw you out the airlock for that,” he growls.

“Hold off on that, Talos,” Fury says sharply, retreating behind his desk. “I don’t appreciate you assaulting my operatives, Collins. You pull that stunt again, you’re going to spend an extended amount of time in the brig. Is that clear?”

Every part of her screams not to show Barnes her back. She compromises, turning her body sideways, so she can keep an eye on them both. “ _Clear_ , Director,” she grits out.

He nods, turns his attention to the new arrival. “I’d say it’s a pleasure to finally meet the real you, Barnes, but I’d be lying.”

Barnes inclines his head. “I get that a lot. If it’s any comfort, you’re the only one to have ever survived the Winter Soldier.”

Isabelle’s stomach roils. “ _What_ is he doing here?”

Fury’s gaze snaps between the two of them, but otherwise, his face is expressionless. “We intercepted his shuttle an hour before you arrived. Wakanda is concerned about the lack of communication with Mars. He’s been updated on the situation and will be accompanying you to the surface.”

She glares. “ _Him_? Sam Wilson...!”

“... cooperates with _S.H.I.E.L.D_. Barnes here is a... mutual gesture of trust between S.P.E.A.R. and S.W.O.R.D. He's here as a liaison, nothing more.”

He smiles thinly, leaning forward against his desk. “And as such, his privileges will be... _extremely rationed_. No weapons, a non-vibranium prosthetic, S.W.O.R.D.-designed hardsuit ... and a _chaperone_ to make sure neither of you flies off the handle.”

Barnes shrugs. “Fair enough.”

Fury looks at him for a long moment, and they seem to come to some sort of a silent understanding. “Talos, Soren, escort Barnes to the armory, get him fitted.”

Talos grumbles under his breath, glares at her, but does as he’s told. The door slides shut behind them, but it doesn’t make her feel any safer.

She suspects she won’t feel safe until Barnes is off the station.

“His presence will help infiltrate the Wakandan outpost.”

Isabelle doesn’t answer, runs a trembling hand down her face. She doesn’t have the strength to put up a front for Fury of all people - he’s seen her at her very worst. But she’s starting to wonder how she ends up vulnerable and exposed every time she steps onto the Peak.

As though he’s reading her mind, he sighs. “Wasn’t my idea, Collins.”

She laughs - a short, bitter sound. “Does it matter? You got what you wanted - me, on a leash.”

His face twists into something awful. “I wanted you _by my side_. Facing whatever’s coming together.”

She laughs again. “I’ve heard that one before.”

**_We’ll lose._ **

**_We’ll do that together too._ **

“The promise of _‘together’_ never ends well for me and mine.”

“Barnes isn’t Rogers, Isabelle.”

“Cut the bullshit, Fury,” she snaps, slamming her hands on the desk. The holograms flicker in response. “Barnes is a loose cannon that’s tried to kill you. _Twice_. There’s no way you’re in any way happier about this.”

His eyes flash, and he straightens, trench-coat billowing behind him. His shadow seems to lengthen, looming over her. “Right now, Collins, neither of us have the luxury of running away from things that make us unhappy. Barnes might be off the triggers, but I doubt they’ve cured him of his trauma. You’re the face of his past - he’ll be off his game, whatever that might be, as long as you’re around.”

“You’re a sick son of a bitch.”

“No, Collins. I’m a _desperate_ son of a bitch.”

* * *

Rambeau is in the same observation deck Isabelle had met her for the first time, staring unseeingly at the inactive holo-projector which had once displayed the Gagarin Station. The windows are shuttered, but instead of relieved, all she’s sensing is _abandoned_.

“You’d already seen the Cro-Magnon footage before, hadn’t you?” Isabelle doesn’t bother with a greeting. “That’s how you caught onto the stenography - because it hadn’t been there in the original.”

“The Protheans left a lot of visual documentation, detailing their visits to Earth,” Rambeau confirms. “We managed to download some data before the Wakandans occupied the site.”

Isabelle nods and turns to leave, disinterested in further conversation.

“Collins,” the low voice calls over. “I’m sorry about the stunt I pulled. I know I should’ve just asked, but sometimes…” she sighs. “Sometimes I listen to the chief much more than he deserves to be listened to.”

She’s not good with apologies - issue or reception. “I’m... not usually one to blame the messenger,” Isabelle finally offers. “Fury’s never been able to accept the truth - there are _no more Avengers_ here to manipulate into saving the day.”

“He doesn’t know how to do it any other way.”

Truer words. Fury truly _doesn’t_ know how to _not_ mold people into the shapes he desires - an assassin, a savior, a _martyr_. If he could, he’d do it to the entire world. Thanos had just fueled the ever-present paranoia inside him. “Do you believe him?”

Rambeau doesn’t ask her to elaborate. She hesitates for a long moment, before gesturing at the platform. Isabelle’s breath catches as the shutters shift, exposing that terrifying infinity.

“ _Methuselah_ ,” Rambeau says apropos of nothing, pointing vaguely. Isabelle is careful not to look over. “Right there - about 200 light-years away - the oldest star in the universe.”

“Collapsed prematurely into a red giant over the past couple hundred years - which it shouldn’t have done for _billions_ more. It’s not the only one; there are so many, across the night sky.” She looks deeply troubled. “The stars are going out, Collins. The universe is getting darker, colder.”

There’s silence.

“Every cell in my body is capable of this,” she raises a hand, casually turning it invisible. “No one understands light better than I do. I _am_ light -,” her fingers flicker to visibility, having curled into a tight fist, “ - now imagine Earth starting to desiccate without explanation.”

Isabelle shivers despite herself. “You think that’s what Fury’s on about?”

She shrugs. “One thing I learned during the Decimation - it’s _all connected._ ”

###  **Sol 202 {Earth Date: August 17th, 2025}**

####  **Research Center**

**Prothean Ruins, Mars**

It’s not an uncommon sight to find Princess Shuri engaged in a rousing argument with her chosen collaborator in all things science - one Bruce Banner - while at the same time attempting to calibrate a massive alien device responsible for sudden and violent gravitational outbursts in their immediate vicinity.

“I’m just saying,” Bruce shouts, his mag-boots locking him firmly to the walkway as the world rocks around them like a ship caught in a storm. “The Protheans must’ve left more than a half-a-dozen dead spaceships and a malfunctioning eezo core!”

He gestures towards the glowing sphere that is even now emitting pulses at irregular intervals. “We’ve just scratched the surface of this place - imagine what we could find if we excavated further!”

“Imagine what we could find if we explored _eezo_ further!” she counters, her fingers flying through the screens as she attempts to calibrate the core. “FTL travel, perhaps even more advances in medicine! It already bends most laws of science, Bruce - don’t you want to know more?”

She risks a glance in his direction - his expression is torn. Of course, he wants to know - but he also has an unfortunate familiarity with extraterrestrial entities that break reality. She couldn’t have imagined being afraid of discovering something new - if not for her disastrous experience with Vision.

Which is why she knows her next statement will win her the argument. “We _will_ excavate further,” she assures him, “ - _when_ the Circle gets here. I just don’t want to risk... _unleashing_ anything without backup, especially when we’ve already uncovered the cause of the anomalies.”

As though prompted by her words, the orb pulses again, washing blue over the metallic panels lining the ancient spherical chamber. Shuri curses and resumes calibrating with haste. She adds in the final commands and watches as the fields slowly settle before dissipating, the world righting itself.

Bruce exhales heavily. “Well, that should hold up for a few days,” he mutters. “ _Hopefully_.” Then, louder - “I’m heading to Birnin T’Chaka for the supply run. You need anything?”

Shuri shakes her head, says nothing as he hesitates, then exits the chamber wordlessly.

She slumps and gazes at the stable eezo core.

It’s _beautiful_.

Vibranium would always be the mineral of her heart, but element zero, or eezo as she’s coined it, comes a very close second.

But despite tinkering on the core for six months, she’s made little progress in understanding the phenomenon. Her calibrations are a band-aid fix. There might be something to Bruce’s theories on finding a permanent solution deeper in the ruins. But she also knows his true reasons for this argument that they seem to have on a weekly basis.

“You shouldn’t let him speak to you like that,” the aforementioned reason speaks from behind her.

Shuri sighs and turns. “He wasn’t rude, Akili. He’s _never_ rude.”

“It’s still not his place to be impertinent,” the leader of the Hatut Zeraze says, eyes narrowed. His too-white uniform is giving her a headache.

She rubs at her forehead. Akili does not make it easy to reign in her temper. “Have you heard anything from the Circle yet?” It’s an obvious attempt at distraction, but she’s genuinely worried - the Circle should’ve been here a week ago.

Akili’s expression pinches. “The storm’s blocking our communications.” He folds his massive arms across his chest. “You’re too trusting of anyone who can speak science to you, Your Highness, even if they’re _rutuku_...”

She jabs a finger at his chest. “Do _not_ call him that!” she says fiercely. “You overstep your bounds, Akili. Yours is not to tell me what to do, or whom I should speak to.”

“I am loyal to the throne of Wakanda, Your Highness.”

She bristles at the implication. “And I am loyal to _Wakanda_ itself, not just those who would seek to rule it in my brother’s stead. I’d suggest you remember that Bruce Banner _obeys_ our laws, despite not being Wakandan... and despite _not needing to_.”

Akili stiffens at the reminder of the threat he believes to be real. Bruce could eject them all from the ruins without breaking a sweat. But _she_ knows he won’t.

It’d been the main reason why she’d insisted on bringing him with her to Mars, despite the vocal disapproval of the Tribal Council and the War Dogs. Unfortunately, her brilliant act of rebellion had backfired on Bruce himself. Akili opens his mouth to retort, but is interrupted by his short-range comm unit buzzing frantically. Frowning, he taps at his Kimoyo Beads, manifesting a hologram.

Against the now near-silent murmur of the eezo core, the sounds of yelling and the discharge of firearms echo loudly. They both flinch.

“...code red, _code red;_ we have a breach!” a War Dogs screams into the flickering hologram, eyes wide. “I repeat, _we have a breach!_ ”

Shuri does a double-take, certain she’s misheard. An invasion isn’t possible, not here, not with the only entrance heavily guarded by some of the most overzealous warriors Wakanda had to offer.

“ _Breach came from below!_ ” The War Dog yells, then ducks beneath cover and fires off a few shots. “ _Multiple points of entry!_ ”

Shuri’s chest tightens. ‘Below’ is everything they haven’t explored yet; it’s not even completely mapped. The War Dogs had deemed it too dangerous after losing two of their own to the depths.

Akili is on the same wavelength. “How many?!”

“ _Unknown! Under heavy fire!_ ” The War Dog is breathing heavily; an anomaly in Wakandan warriors - there aren’t many threats that can make them sweat.

At least, not before Thanos, Shuri reminds herself.

On the holo, bright white light emerges from somewhere, and the War Dog peeks out of cover, his eyes widening at whatever he finds. “ _Threat possesses heavy weapons!_ ” He screams. “ _We’re being overwhelmed!”_

_“I repeat, we are being over...”_

The holo flickers to oblivion.

###  **Sol 1 [Earth Date: August 17th, 2025]**

####  **Birnin T’Chaka**

**Mars**

Navigating a space shuttle through a zero-visibility storm with fluctuating nav-systems is just begging for a violent encounter with a cliff. But Monica Rambeau subverts all expectations, even managing to safely guide it into the airlock of a blue dome-shield surrounding the outpost of Birnin T’Chaka.

Isabelle would’ve been impressed if she wasn’t hyper-focused on reconciling with the near absence of water on the planet. There’s ice somewhere down south, her straining, aching Inhuman senses tell her, but the approach is blocked by thousands of miles of bare, dry dunes and deep craters.

She should’ve probably continued to wear the inhibitor.

Her first steps on Mars are... _unsettling_. Dust cakes the exterior of the shuttle, having invaded every crevice it could find. The dry heat beats down relentlessly. A scanner runs over them - the sand on their armor trembles for a second before falling to the floor in a heap. The airlock hatch hisses open, declaring them clear of all contamination.

“Let me do the talking,” Barnes murmurs as they take off their helmets. The air feels stale - life support is working fine, but the odor filtration systems must be taking a beating from the storm. “The Mayor’s a member of the Hatut Zeraze - they’re notoriously conservative.”

Code for ‘refusing to relinquish their prejudice against outsiders in an attempt to revert their country to an isolationist monarchy’. Small wonder the man practically exiled himself to a desolate planet ASAP when Wakanda opened its borders only to become ground zero for a massive war.

Isabelle would’ve let Barnes do the heavy lifting if not for the fact that her eyes are arrested by the sight of a familiar, towering figure having a tense conversation with the aforementioned Mayor.

She takes a few, stumbling steps forward, stunned until a pair of vibrant green eyes she couldn’t have imagined in this particular setting meet hers.

“ _Bruce?_ ”

* * *

“Thanks for the heads-up, Banner,” she says once they’ve stumbled through the initial whammy. Barnes is attempting to explain their presence to the Mayor, while Rambeau is...

Nowhere to be seen.

Probably skulking around the place, invisible.

“Sorry - wasn’t allowed to talk about it,” Bruce says. “They shackled me in confidentiality agreements as soon as I stepped foot into Wakanda.”

The last time she’d seen Bruce - during the reappearance of the Ghost Rider - he had mentioned being called to Wakanda for a ‘consultation’. With everything that had happened, it’d completely slipped her mind, but in hindsight, the notion is brilliantly simple - who else were they going to call to examine ancient, alien artifacts on another planet?

Bruce knows how to keep secrets better than anyone.

“Shuri invited me aboard,” he admits, looking almost glad to do so. “They ousted the Lowell scientists almost as soon as we got here. Couldn’t do a damn thing but watch.” He takes a deep breath. “Things have been tense around here, Izzy - I’m glad you’re here.”

“You won’t be after you hear whose orders I’m following.” And she tells him.

Bruce’s skin loses some of the green. She knows what he’s thinking - any time the two of them are pulled into uncovering ground-breaking alien technology by Nick Fury, it never ends well.

She takes stock of the surroundings. Birnin T’Chaka is disconcertingly minimalist for a Wakandan site, with just enough cultural influences to distinguish it from any other settlement. A roiling wall of vermilion presses against the blue dome-shield, obscuring what would’ve otherwise been a spectacular view.

Her briefing had highlighted that the dome doesn’t have cloaking - unlike Wakanda, Birnin T’Chaka sees no benefit in hiding its presence. Quite the opposite.

Here, the shield - hell, the strategic position of the outpost itself, which allows them to control the only stable entrance to the Prothean ruins; a lone bridge across the canyon - is a statement.

The ruins belong to Wakanda, and _Wakanda alone._

She’s glad she wasn’t there to see Fury go apoplectic at whichever agent had made _that_ assessment.

A lone rover is parked at the exit airlock. A six-wheeled monstrosity, it’s painted brown with orange highlights - Isabelle doesn’t know whether the design was a deliberate choice or a gigantic miscalculation because literally, no one would see that coming.

“That yours?” she asks Bruce. “Nice ride. Looks like it’s missing a little something, though.”

He glances at it. “That’s a VT-7. They used a turreted version to occupy the facility. Ripped them for my supply runs.” He snorts. “As though I need a tank to smash.”

“I’m guessing most of the Wakandans aren’t fans of yours.”

He nods, grimacing. “I’ve been trying to convince Shuri to dig deeper - thought that they’d be forced to call in outsiders if they had a lot of data to sift through - but no dice. The Hatut Zeraze isn’t budging on the issue. There are days I don’t know who’s in charge of who.”

Just then, Isabelle’s awareness pings; Barnes is coming over, his expression wavering from stony to vexed. Her stomach clenches.

“Mayor’s only gonna allow one of you past the checkpoint,” he mutters.

Bruce rears back. “What? Why?”

“Because you’re both Avengers. I convinced him you’re practically useless here, without water,” he nods at her. “But the Hulk can still smash.”

“I don’t need my powers to be dangerous,” she says before she can stop herself.

The former assassin raises an eyebrow, unimpressed. “Shall I go tell him that then? Look, he’s just trying to protect his people. This is an incredibly delicate situation, and we’re cut off from Earth. I doubt Fury wants a war on his hands.”

There’s a silence as she grits her teeth, looks away.

“It’s... fine,” Bruce sighs, torn. “We won’t all fit in the rover, anyway.”

Her stomach sinks at the implication. “You just don’t want to be there when it all goes down,” she accuses, her tone only partially light-hearted as she activates her comms.

“Yeah, well, sue me. I spent more than a decade avoiding conflict - habit’s hard to break.”

Isabelle winces as static crackles in her ear. “Rambeau, you read me?”

“ _Barely_ ,” is the belated, slurred reply. She must be outside the dome; Isabelle can hear the storm howling in the background. “ _Let me guess; they’re not letting us through._ ”

“Access for only one of us, and I’m assuming Fury wants _me_ on the case.”

There’s a sigh. “ _I’d anticipated being_ in _the ruins before the situation went south. Though I’ve to admit; this works well for us._ ”

“Yeah, how’s that?”

“ _I can dig up any potential leaks for our friend Henry Lawson in Lowell City._ ”

She moves until she’s out of earshot. “Your chief isn’t gonna be happy about that.”

Rambeau scoffs. “ _That’s what he gets for ordering me to babysit you. I’ll take Banner with me; might dissuade any... disagreements. You gonna be okay?_ ”

Isabelle feels Barnes’ gaze heavy on the nape of her neck. “Guess we’ll see.”

###  **Sol 202 {Earth Date: August 17th, 2025]**

####  **Starship Hangar**

**Prothean Ruins**

The marauders patrol in the dark; the overhead lights barely penetrate the gloom of the hangar, glinting dully off the matte-finished surface of the alien starships, which sit still on raised landing platforms. Forcefields powered by the eezo core enclose the tubular hatches above each one that leads directly to the surface.

With a roar, the War Dogs leap into the fray. Muzzle flashes splinter the darkness as assault rifles go off, the marauders aiming blindly. Shuri remains at a distance, firing off sonic blasts from her gauntlets.

She had refused to be sidelined from the fight; after all, she’s the only one who truly understands how valuable these ruins are. And yet, this had still been one of the last places she’d expected the marauders to gather.

The hangar had been one of the first sections for the ruins to be uncovered by the Lowell scientists. The only artifacts of worth she’d found were crates of refined eezo, all of which had been transported deeper into her labs or had been sent off-world for further analysis by the Circle.

Shuri had examined the starships - each with depleted eezo cores, absent of anything even remotely resembling weapons and non-interactive interfaces. There’s nothing of value within them, not after 50,000 years.

Then why are they here?

The answer comes to her just as one of the War Dogs shouts “ _Engineer!_ ”. Her gaze snaps to a marauder crouching over a device, which unfurls into a tripod stand cradling a sphere.

It rises and hovers, spinning wildly. The quadrants detach themselves, revealing a glowing core. Something about it seems oddly familiar. Something shifts in the air and she aims her gauntlet, pausing only for a second... and that hesitation - brief as it was - costs her dearly.

A wave of energy unlike anything she’s ever known erupts outwards from the sphere. It rolls over the entire hangar like a tsunami. Her skin tingles and the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

Then the screaming starts.

She twists, ready to fire.

Her eyes fall on her gauntlets.

Her smoking, sparking, _lifeless_ gauntlets.

Shuri’s stomach sinks.

In the muzzle flash-lit haze of the hangar, the War Dogs fall in droves as the assault rifles shred through their armor. Their armor - with _vibranium_ woven through every inch of it, protecting them, defending them from primitive weapons like _guns_.

A spray of gunfire almost catches her in the arm. Some of the marauders have caught sight of her. She ducks into cover, desperately trying to reactivate her weapons, because they have never, ever failed her - _she_ had designed them; they _couldn’t_ fail her.

No response.

 _Impossible_.

And yet, not.

“Fall back!” Akili’s roar resounds through the hangar.

_“Fall back!”_

And as Shuri flees the hangar in a thunder of rapid footfalls, being chased by an enemy they’d underestimated, one question rings in her mind, over and over again.

**_What is a Wakandan without vibranium?_ **

###  **Sol 1 [Earth Date: August 17th, 2025]**

####  **Promethei Planum**

**Mars**

Contrary to her expectations, the rover is surprisingly roomy, but with no one to alleviate the hostility between herself and Barnes, it soon becomes a cramped affair.

Isabelle’s activated the external cameras, even though the virtual display on the windscreen doesn’t provide much in the way of a view. The dust storm has segued from a wall of brilliant vermilion to this deep brown that’s just a few tones lighter than black.

Shuri had apparently anticipated a visibility problem, though, because before setting off, Barnes’ fingers had flown across the dashboard. A hologram had sprung into being, superimposing wireframes of megastructures in the immediate vicinity - the bridge across the massive canyon, connecting the isolated regions of Birnin T’Chaka and the Prothean ruins, several angular hills to the north of Eos Chasma, and in contrast, a smooth topography to the south.

The maneuverability leaves much to be desired though, but since the bridge is pretty much a straight line, she can manage.

The silence inside is stifling. They’re both wearing their helmets - a futile exercise in ignoring each other, because neither can forget the other’s presence. They’re a chemical mixture waiting to explode; they’d proved that much in their last encounter.

And there’s very little she can do about it.

“Question for a question?”

“Sure,” she shrugs, willing to pretend that something as banal as quid pro quo is going to maintain a modicum of civility between them. “You go first.”

“Banner - did you know? That he was here?”

There’s not a hint of accusation in his voice, but his words are similar enough to yet another conversation she’d heard in a virtual simulation of a revelation that had destroyed her world.

**_"Don't bullshit me, Rogers, did you know?"_ **

**_"...Yes."_ **

It’s a strange mirror of that situation, she thinks, even though this is nowhere near that level of brutal. She feels an inappropriate and hysterical urge to laugh, which somehow overrides her general sense of hostility towards the man, forcing her to answer. “I didn’t _know_. He mentioned a consultation in Wakanda, but no details. Why did T’Challa send you?”

“Because he wanted someone who was at the Circle to update Shuri.”

A cold finger trails down Isabelle’s spine. The storm outside resembles the mist of the red sand far too much for comfort; she finally understands the name. “That’s not a good idea.”

“Of course _you’d_ think so,” he snorts. “Marching to Fury’s fife, looking for an abrupt, _violent_ end to Wakanda’s occupation of the ruins? Not happening on my watch.”

“Your ‘update’ will ensure I won’t even get a _diplomatic_ way in!”

He shrugs. “Not my problem.”

Rage is a temporary distraction, but hatred always burns slow and cold. “They don’t know you’re coming. Maybe they never will.”

He laughs suddenly, sharp and cutting. “A rematch? Might be fair here ’n now. No water, no vibranium arm… no _red sand_.”

Her heart picks up speed. She knows he can hear it. Through his visor, she can see his lip curling in detached amusement, his eyes as hard and cold as the Winter Soldier.

A harsh mechanical sound cuts through the thick anticipation.

The console’s lit up with warning lights, beeps, and trills far too loud in what had moments ago been a pervading silence. She grabs onto the distraction with a mixture of relief and disappointment. “What’s going on?”

Barnes zooms into the hologram, narrowing at a red, blinking point just a few meters ahead. “Sensors are detecting something up ahead...”

The world disappears in a flare of light and sound.

Something slams into the side of the rover, pitching it upward. It tumbles through the air, crashing through the roof of the bridge. Isabelle feels momentary weightlessness before gravity reasserts itself and the rover slams upside down onto the sheared edge of the bridge… only to immediately start backsliding.

Heading right for the mile-deep canyon waiting down below.

Isabelle shouts, fingers flying over the console, trying to get the vehicle back on track, back on the level part of the bridge. The hologram’s whited out by the explosion - she has no idea where she’s going; she only knows that she has to stop _sliding_.

But it’s out of control, crashing through mangled metallic supports and beams. Her side of the dashboard dents inwards, and she yells as it pins her against her seat.

In the instant before the rover plunges, Barnes _moves_.

Almost too fast to comprehend, he unfastens his seat belt and throws himself out through the windshield.

Glass shatters inwards, ushering in a cloud of thick, red sand. She barely has time to gasp before a huge arm emerges out of the billowing dust, fingers hooking onto the dash.

The rover comes to an abrupt halt.

Isabelle stays frozen, her heart about to explode out of her chest. Terror crawls up her throat. Her life’s still flashing through her eyes, washed out in an ocean of red that’s deafening all of a sudden.

The rover sways.

“ _Collins!_ ” Barnes’ strained bark through her comms informs her he’s been trying to catch her attention for a while.

“Still here,” she says after a moment. Her voice is hoarse from screaming. “Barely.”

He shudders out a breath. “ _I can’t hold on much longer._ ”

She blinks. Through the storm, she barely makes out his fist - metallic plates, non-vibranium - and it hits her then.

Barnes is holding up the rover with just _one arm_.

He’d _thrown_ himself out of the rover in a _last-ditch attempt_ to find leverage he couldn’t _see_.

The bottom of the canyon seems uncomfortably close. “Okay,” she says, trying to sound calm but failing utterly. “Okay. How’s the grip on the other end?”

“ _Stable for now. Can you fly?_ ”

She shakes her head, realizing belatedly that he wouldn’t be able to see it. “Not enough water.”

He grunts. “ _Then I’m going to need you to climb up my arm._ ”

The panic is stuck in her throat, choking her. “I can’t do that, Barnes,” she says thickly.

“ _Collins_ ,” he growls. “ _I know you don’t trust me right now...!_ ”

“I’m pinned to the seat,” she interrupts him.

There’s a silence.

“The dashboard caved in,” she says because she doesn’t want silence to be the last thing she hears. “I’m trapped. My armor...” she breaks off as the rover groans and sways.

She can see the faintest outline of the metallic arm through the storm. Or maybe she’s imagining it because she’s pretty sure Fury’s engineers wouldn’t have been thoughtless enough to paint in that red star.

“ _Find a way_ ,” he snarls. The dashboard bends beneath his grip. “ _I don’t care how - just_ fucking find a way.”

She takes a deep breath to clear her mind. Activating her omni-tool, she scans her surroundings, trying to find something, _anything_ that she can use. Orange light washes over her seat, highlighting a mechanism beneath her seat. Her helmet’s HUD brings up the schematics. “There’s a parachute module here,” she says, befuddled.

Barnes grunts an assent. “ _In case the rovers don’t make atmospheric entry_.” A moment later, he catches on. “ _You can deploy it; eject the seat._ ”

Isabelle doesn’t waste any time. She copies the command transfer from the blinking console to her ’tool. Heart in her throat, she frees herself from the seat belt and hooks her arm with his. Barnes groans, the sound just this side of a muffled sob.

The rover creaks alarmingly.

Isabelle tenses, and that’s all the warning she gives him before activating the deployment.

With a rush of decompressed air, the seat shoots out and smashes through the rear, the chute ballooning for a brief moment before disappearing into the storm. She yells as she finds herself hanging precariously from his arm. Unable to compensate for the sudden addition of her weight, his grip on the dashboard loosens.

The jagged remnants of windshield glass scrape deep marks against the front of her hardsuit as the rover falls into the canyon. Her grip slips, and for a moment, she feels that dreadful freefall again before his fingers grab onto hers.

Isabelle dangles there, metallic fingers squeezing hers painfully. With a strangled shout, he pulls her upwards until her other hand can grab for the leverage.

It’s a metal beam, most of it sheared from the bridge - more stable than it should’ve been. Hardly one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Isabelle quickly climbs then reaches for Barnes.

By unspoken consent, they linger there only for a moment, her scanner sweeping to reveal a semi-stable platform amidst the wreck that is the bridge. Blindly, they scrabble upwards, the sound of their harsh breaths echoing through their comms, almost drowning out the haunting howl of the storm that beats against their armor as though enraged at them having dodged certain death.

They only stop once they’re clear of the wreck, on the other side of a bridge that has been sheared in half. They drop to the metallic floor on trembling knees, crawling to opposite ends of the bridge.

She feels light-headed; her breaths rasping painfully through her chest. Her body is shivering uncontrollably, coming down from the terror far too slowly for comfort.

But finally, at what seems like an eternity later, her heart settles into a slightly-faster-than-normal beat, and her breaths even out as much as they’re going to. She squints through the storm at Barnes, sprawled against the beams. Reluctant, horrified gratitude floods her veins, but refuses to cross the barrier of her lips. Instead, what comes out is a perplexed - “why?”

“I don’t recommend death via falling into a canyon.” He tries to sound offhand, but even through the comms, it comes across as faintly strangled.

She turns away, looks over at the other end of the bridge. Their only way back to the outpost, lost. “The hell was that?”

“IED, rigged with a proximity trigger,” he says shortly.

She’d come to the conclusion herself but wanted a dissenting opinion nonetheless. At S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy, she’d scored a barely passing grade in explosives. She’d wanted to stray from her father’s legacy as a weapons manufacturer, and had deliberately sabotaged her assessment.

More than three decades of missions - a lot of them involving explosives - had made her re-examine that decision. “Who would do this?”

“I’m more concerned with the why than the who.” Dust billows as he pushes himself up with a groan. “I don’t think this was meant for _us_.”

She stills. “Explain.”

He nods to the bridge. “These are military-grade explosives; strong enough to take out a _tank_. But the rover is designed to survive the heat of re-entry, which is the only reason it didn’t blow up.” He turns to her. “No... I don’t think _we_ were the intended targets.”

It hits with a cold understanding just who he’s talking about. “ _Bruce…_ ” she whispers, horror thick in her voice. She looks around at the wreck that they’d barely managed to escape with their lives. “This was meant for the Hulk. Wouldn’t kill him, but…”

“It’ll get him out of the picture,” he says neutrally. “Hatut Zeraze or not; he’d be the first line of defense for the ruins, right? And by taking out the bridge…”

“They could ensure no reinforcements,” she finishes his thought. “No one but Rambeau is insane enough to fly a shuttle in this storm. Killing two birds with one bomb. How did they get onto the bridge though? Isn’t the whole point of Birnin T’Chaka to restrict access?”

Barnes shrugs. “They monitor any _vehicles_ ; but a small team could’ve slipped past their defenses, especially using the storm as a cover.”

She looks ahead, through the storm, to where she estimates the ruins to be. If she’s right, whoever had planted the explosives were there, along with Shuri and the Hatut Zeraze. “Hell of a walk, then.”

He meets her eyes. “We’ll find out soon enough.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** MCU Context **
> 
> **The Winter Soldier’s Trigger Words**
> 
> 1\. Longing.  
> 2\. Rusted. Seventeen. Daybreak.  
> 3\. Furnace. Nine. Benign. Homecoming. One. Freight car... Soldier?  
> 4\. Go fuck yourself. 
> 
> ** Comics Context **
> 
> **Akili**
> 
> Akili is a member of the Hatut Zeraze, also known as the War Dogs. Spies and soldiers of Wakanda. In the comics, they’re led by the White Wolf, who, in MCU, is none other than Bucky Barnes. I needed Barnes for something else, so I decided to use this guy as the leader instead.
> 
> He’s also the War Dogs’ representative to the Tribal Council of Elders I have alluded to in my earlier chapters. A little too loyal.
> 
> **Rutuku**
> 
> According to the Wakandan dictionary, it’s a derogatory word for ‘foreigner’.
> 
> ** Mass Effect Context **
> 
> **Prothean Facility**
> 
> According to the codex provided in the Mass Effect series, The south polar region of Promethei Planum on Mars developed a 'Bermuda Triangle' reputation when satellites started detecting intermittent mass concentrations and magnetic field shifts that I alluded to ‘Things Fall Apart; the Center Cannot Hold’.
> 
> A prospecting team led by Mateus Silva began exploring near the Deseado Crater and found the source of these disturbances when they unearthed a subterranean Prothean ruin. The odd phenomena were generated by the operation and discharge of a mass effect core, struggling to function despite fifty millennia of neglect.
> 
> The ruins also contained several alien starships, as well as refined element zero (the new element that everyone’s so hyped about). There were also vaults filled with data troves that haven’t been explored yet.
> 
> For non-fans, all of this will be explained and explored in this and the next chapter.
> 
> **Global Dust Storms**
> 
> There are some really cool orbital images of Mars when the haze thrown up by massive dust storms become globally distributed. In Mass Effect 3, a storm kicked up while you were on Mars. Another one stranded Mark Watney in the Martian movie.
> 
> But apparently, even the wind in the largest dust storms aren’t strong enough to damage rovers or other equipment, because there’s hardly any atmospheric pressure up there. It’s just hell to clean up, afterward.
> 
> **Hardsuit**
> 
> Basically, a spacesuit and armor combined into one.
> 
> **Birnin T’Chaka**
> 
> In Mass Effect: Andromeda, there were small mining stations on an immensely hostile, barren moon, protected from the radiation by orange dome-shields. I’m using a similar concept here.
> 
> Concept arts of the Mars Prothean ruins show bridges/tram lines extending outward from the facility, like thin, long spokes. In my fic’s canon, only one of them has been constructed in order to restrict access to the ruins.
> 
> **M29 Grizzly/VT7**
> 
> M29 "Grizzly" Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV) was called the ‘battle taxi’, used in a lot of planetary campaigns. Very heavy and bulky, even when stripped down to its civilian version, the VT7 rover (the one provided to Bruce). 
> 
> I was super tickled while introducing this. In my fic, the Grizzlies were created by the Wakandans to explore Mars, able to fit six people, including the driver. All rovers and IFVs have external cameras, which can be switched on to provide virtual windows.


	19. What Powerful But Unrecorded Race

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A relic of an ancient time foreshadows an uncertain future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning:** Suicide via cyanide pill. Might be a spoiler, but better to be forewarned.
> 
>  **A/N:** I'm gonna have to take a couple of months off from this fic. I'm doing Nanowrimo this year, and for some reason decided to take the challenge for an original piece _and_ this fic. Which implies 50,000 words for both. I don't know what I was thinking - or whether I was even thinking at all - but I can't back out now. As you might have surmised, I'm a workaholic with no social life. No, this is not the fault of a pandemic. That is my default state.
> 
> In December, I have my exams to occupy me. Seventh semester; I've been warned that it's gonna be tough, pandemic be darned. Yay.
> 
> Hopefully, I'll have a bunch of buffer chapters when I return on January 3rd. Until then, my friends, good luck. Stay safe. Have a happy new year.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this chapter. Please leave your thoughts and comments down below; they keep me motivated.

_… some Hunter may express_

_Wonder like ours, when thro' the wilderness_

_…_

_He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess_

_What powerful but unrecorded race_

_Once dwelt in that annihilated place._

\- Ozymandias; Horace Smith

  
  


###  **Sol 202 [Earth Date: August 17th, 2025]**

####  **Communications Room**

**Prothean Ruins**

Shuri shoves down a migraine prickling at the edges of her consciousness. The lamp’s glow glints accusingly against the scattered shards of her gauntlets. She yanks off her goggles, rubs the spot where they’d pressed too hard against her skin.

“Well?” Akili asks impatiently.

She grits her teeth, reminding herself that they’re all on edge and concessions must be made. “The technology seems familiar, somehow. My best guess is a variation of the sonic technology from Ulysses Klaue’s prosthetic, which was capable of disabling T’Challa’s suit. But this... is more widespread. And sustained.”

“Which means?”

“As long as the marauders’ device remains active, vibranium will be useless within the ruins.”

There’s a silence as that sinks in. They’ve all grown up with vibranium all around them - in their cities, in their technology, in the very ground beneath them. It is a borderline impossible concept she’s asking them to imagine - a life without vibranium. Even their Kimoyo beads - ones they’ve had since their birth - are unresponsive.

She hadn’t anticipated the world to adapt to Wakanda’s presence, to take advantage of the fact that their entire technology is reliant on vibranium.

 _Far_ too reliant on vibranium.

**_What is a Wakandan without vibranium?_ **

**_What is_** **she** **_without vibranium?_ **

There’s a pause. “Klaue can’t be behind this; he’s dead and his empire has fallen,” Akili says. “Those weren’t ordinary marauders. They knew enough about the facility and our movements to isolate and cripple us. We’re still searching for the breach in our security.”

Shuri stiffens, knowing exactly where Akili is taking this. “ _No_ ,” she says, quietly but firmly.

“Very convenient, is it not, Your Highness, that we were infiltrated just when Bruce Banner was absent?”

“I doubt they wanted to go up against the _Hulk_ ,” she shoots back. “They probably waited for him to leave. He’s _not_ responsible, Akili.”

“He was unhappy with our forced occupation of the ruins. He was outspoken about allowing outsiders inside our borders.”

“As though he’d involve someone else when he could’ve stopped us easily enough!”

“How _else_ do you explain their preparedness?”

“I’m not _trying_ to!” Shuri presses her thumb into her temples. The Hatut Zeraze are spies, first and foremost - useful for the initial occupation, but sitting still for months on end as glorified bodyguards is a waste of their talents, and moreover, an insult.

She’s always privately believed that - with the exception of Nakia - the rest of them crave conflict, yearn for the heat of adrenaline. In the absence of appropriate stimulus on Mars, they’d _invented_ a threat in their vicinity - Bruce Banner.

“Regardless of whoever is responsible for this,” Shuri grits out, “ - we are trapped, with no defenses against an enemy that outnumbers us three to one. We’re being hunted, and it won’t be long before they find us. Perhaps we can concentrate on _that_ instead of throwing blame around!”

There’s a long silence.

“What do you suggest?”

She brushes past him to the primary comm console, brings up a few holograms. “We have two options - reinforcements, or retreat. I’d rather not give up just yet, so I’m trying to fine-tune our comm relay…” she trails off.

The global storm ravaging the planet in the past few months had thoroughly disrupted communications with Earth. It’s a setback they’d anticipated, but not adequately prepared for, so she’d contented herself with just waiting it out.

Then why was she detecting traces of communication logs dated just a few weeks ago?

“Your Highness?”

The air around her seems to tremble, reminding her of the spherical device that had negated all her life’s work in the span of a few seconds. The data’s root structure had been erased, but Shuri digs a little deeper, her heart picking up speed as she realizes that the logic integrity of the logs remains viable.

She breaks through the encryption easily and brings up the reports.

They’re from the Tribal Council of Elders.

Addressed to Akili.

_A coup in S.P.E.A.R._

_A collision in Niganda._

_An invasion of the Circle._

There’s a dull roaring in her ears, building in intensity. Her fists are clenched, her nails digging into her palms.

She remembers restructuring the Circle’s security systems against her better judgement, before being sidetracked by strange anomalies on Mars. T’Challa had argued against it but had been overridden by the Council’s almost unanimous decision to deploy a regiment of Hatut Zeraze to oust the Lowell outsiders from the alien ruins. Following _that_ public disaster, her insistence on taking Bruce Banner hadn’t earned her any favors.

There’s a quote she remembers from her youth, a throwaway line from her mother that she hadn’t truly understood until now.

**_The War Dogs are to the Elders what the Dora Milaje are to the King._ **

“I wonder…,” she asks conversationally, even though her voice has dropped a few degrees. “Were you ever going to tell me?”

She flicks the hologram towards him. She wonders what it says about her when she’s not even a little bit surprised to see his first reaction is irritation, not guilt, certainly not regret. “Your Highness,” he says condescendingly, “ - I understand this might be upsetting, but this is hardly the time to…”

 **_The storm's causing interference._ ** A half-truth, allowing her to make her own conclusions. He's a spy, after all - trained in the art of deception.

“I’m discovering new layers to you, Akili. A liar, a traitor. You were so eager to blame Bruce. So _desperate_ that I believe you. Was it because you were terrified I’d find out your culpability, your guilt?”

He frowns, taking a threatening step forward. “I _never…_ ”

She snaps. “The Circle was hijacked, Akili! Our people tortured and experimented on by a madman! Our miracles blighted, our treasures stolen!”

She jabs towards the door, towards the hangar that had borne witness to the quickest defeat in the history of Wakanda. Even Thanos hadn’t been able to destroy them so easily. “That technology - I realize now why it is so familiar. It is based on _my_ _sonic stabilizers_ , which _neutralize_ raw vibranium on the maglev trains!”

For the first time, he falters, blood draining from his features. “I... that’s not possible.”

“The Circle would’ve provided them access to Wakanda’s servers! I suspect my patch job on rewiring S.P.E.A.R. security did not hold up as well as I thought!”

“I didn’t know.” He’s shaking his head, stubborn even in the face of evidence. “I didn’t... I thought. I was just following orders.”

“A coward’s excuse, Akili.”

Nausea churns in her gut as she watches him, watches them all. Had Akili had been the only one in the know, or had they all been culpable in keeping this from her?

First, the vibranium fails her, and now her people do.

For the first time since she landed on Mars, she feels so very very alone.

A persistent, high-pitched alarm interrupts her descent into crippling insecurity.

It's the proximity alert for the main entrance to the ruins.

A spike of dread runs through her. Did the marauders call for reinforcements? She banishes the evidence of Akili's guilt, calls forth holograms depicting the layout of the facility.

Her breath stutters. Her mind blanks out.

Her fingers reach out, flying across the holographic keyboard.

“ _Bucky Barnes -_ ,” she cries, her voice edging on hysteria.

###  **Sol 1 [Earth Date: August 17th, 2025]**

####  **Prothean Ruins**

“ - _where in_ Bast's green fields _is the vibranium prosthetic I built you?!_ ”

Isabelle winces as Princess Shuri's high-pitched voice bursts through their comms. The dim light of the alien hallway illuminates Barnes' relieved grin.

“Safe,” he promises. “You okay, Princess?”

“ _I’ve been better. I’ve been worse. Not that I’m not glad to see you, but why are you here?_ ”

“The King sent me, Your Highness.”

There’s a telling pause. “ _..._ T’Challa _? Not the Elders?_ ”

“No,” Barnes shows no indication that he’s startled by the very charged question. “He was worried about the lack of communication. A lot’s happened. A lot’s changed.”

“ _So I gather. We'll have that conversation later. For now, I need your help. We’ve got company, and they’re the unfriendly kind._ ”

Isabelle exchanges a glance with Barnes. “We don’t have any weapons.”

There’s a telling pause.

“ _You won’t need them.”_

###  **Sol 204 [Earth Date: August 17th, 2025]**

####  **Eezo Core**

Bucky stares at the massive glowing orb suspended by constructs in the spherical chamber. It pulses at regular intervals but seems stable for now. Shuri had given it a nickname - eezo, or element zero - and had immediately launched into a techno-jargon-babble that he’d tuned out before she’d finished a sentence.

Unlike Steve, he’s no stranger to highly advanced tech - HYDRA had made sure he excelled in hacking almost any computer. Even though his methods had never advanced beyond brute-forcing his way through firewalls, it’d served him well enough all those years.

Wakanda had been a technological marvel, where tradition and culture blended seamlessly into science in a way that had seemed magical. But even the awe he’d felt at the scope of vibranium had dulled over the years.

Eezo brings him back to square one.

Well, he thinks ruefully, at least he’s on the same page as everyone else. “So how’s this going to help us?”

Shuri sighs heavily. “Perhaps a demonstration would help,” she says, slipping behind a desk in an adjacent lab. She holds up a blue glowing canister. “Bucky, your arm, please?”

Bucky bemusedly detaches the prosthetic and hands it over. Collins inches closer. The Hatut Zeraze are conspicuously absent.

“No, hold it above this,” she says, pointing to a rudimentary elementary circuit she’s hastily assembled. “Do not move, and don’t let go for anything. I can’t be held responsible if anything happens.”

He looks over in alarm, but Shuri is already fiddling with her Kimoyo beads. A hologram pops up, in the form of concentric circles. She places crooked fingers on it. “Ready?” she asks, but before she can answer, she turns it clockwise.

A blue field of light erupts from the circuit. It pulses strangely and then, all of a sudden, the prosthetic feels lighter. “What the hell?” he says, holding the arm still but angling himself to see if parts of it have fallen off but no - the arm is whole.

Just weighing so little to be almost insubstantial.

Before he can marvel at it, she turns the circular hologram in the other direction.

His hand slams into the table as the weight of the prosthetic increases tenfold.

“Gravity,” he breathes, reminded of Erich Paine’s sandblasters.

She shuts down the experiment. “ _Mass_ , not gravity,” she corrects, eyes brightening slightly. “When subjected to an electric current, eezo manipulates mass via dark energy. A positive current increases mass, a negative current reduces it.”

Collins perks up from her corner, an eyebrow arched. “ _Dark energy?_ ” There’s something strange in her voice.

Shuri nods. “Electrified eezo creates a field, releasing massive amounts of dark energy, which is known to affect the mass content of space-time.”

“I call it _mass effect_.”

* * *

####  **Roof**

**Prothean Ruins**

Bucky wouldn’t have contributed to this admittedly-insane plan if he’d known they would all collectively decide that _he_ was the best person to _carry out_ said plan.

The darkened, lightning-streaked Martian clouds have completely blotted out the sun, almost smothering him in torrential sand. He can barely see more than a few inches ahead of him, but he doesn’t have to. The glow of the kinetic forcefield securing the circular hatch pierces through the murk, guiding his way across the roof.

His joke on not recommending death by fall into a canyon had held a deeper truth - he doesn’t like falling at all, canyon or no. He has an irrational fear of it, even though the memory of the fall in the Alps is one that continues to elude him.

He’s not sure whether he’s resentful or grateful - because while he doesn’t have nightmares about the fall as he does with all his other memories, terror still clings to his soul, just without context.

And now he’s not just about to fall, but actively jump into a tube at least fifty-feet in depth, putting his faith in Shuri and Collins to time the plan perfectly. According to the schematics, the other end of the circular hatch opens directly above an alien starship, within which the marauders had stored the still-functioning vibranium EMP.

It's an excellent strategy - the platform on which the starship stands is much higher than the floor, and anyone who wanted to get to it had to climb a ladder in a clear view of the rest of the room. Unfortunately, the marauders hadn’t banked on desperation and clear access provided by the hangar doors _atop_ it.

The forcefield sealing the hatch dissipates the moment the countdown on his HUD reaches zero. He waits exactly eleven seconds, then jumps headfirst.

\-----

In the hangar, in those critical eleven seconds after the field dematerializes, Isabelle Collins tumbles out of cover and discharges a powerful Overload from her omni-tool, directly into the main control panel. It chains around the room, shattering glass and shorting out the lights, plunging the hangar into darkness.

Deliberate sabotage, a declaration of war, and a signal, all at once.

In the chaos that follows, no one notices a tiny figure dropping from one of the ceiling hatches.

\-----

On Collins’ cue, Shuri’s fingers fly across the console, releasing the digital clamps that she’d spent months perfecting in an attempt to permanently stabilize the malfunctioning eezo core. All her careful calculations and calibrations wrenched out in less than eleven seconds, forcing the core to its default state - complete and utter chaos.

Her mag-boots come online as the core pulses violently and the world turns upside-down.

\-----

The relentless pull of artificial gravity lasts a breathtakingly long second, before Shuri’s ‘decalibration’ takes effect, yanking him behind the navel. Bucky jerks to a hard stop in mid-air, a foot away from having his head smashed in by the starship.

He tumbles through the air, glad he hadn’t had anything to eat since before his departure in Wakanda. As the world pitches around him, he catches faint glimpses of Collins diving in between enraged opponents, the orange glow of her omni-tool arcing through the air.

That’s a shame. He’d really been hoping the marauders wouldn’t have mag-boots. Would’ve solved a lot of problems.

Well, at least they won't be able to use their guns.

His armored fingers reach out, attempting to find purchase on the smooth hull of the Prothean ship, before snagging into a narrow groove. He grunts as he pulls himself towards it, flips upright, his mag-boots snapping to the hull with a metallic thunk that goes thankfully unnoticed.

As he slides down onto the raised platform, he finds himself immeasurably grateful to Fury’s insistence on replacing his vibranium arm. Bucky can’t quite tell if it had been a suspicious prescience or simple paranoia, but suspects it’s probably both. His borderline insightful manipulations had been legendary, even in HYDRA.

The airlock is forced open, leading directly into the interior of the ship. What strikes him immediately is how it’s subtly _off_ to his senses. Curved, organic surfaces, with ancient, alien consoles that he suspects, would’ve been glowing if the ship had still been alive.

It feels appropriate to call it a _dead_ ship than a _broken_ one.

The vibranium EMP is placed right in the middle of the command center. Even though it’s the only obvious human construction in the entire ship, the white glow of it still sickens him.

“Hurry up, Barnes!” Collins grunts through his comms, her words punctuated by enraged shouts.

The EMP is blindingly hot on approach. His visor automatically darkens to the lowest setting, but he’s still forced to turn away. He reaches out with his prosthetic, eyes squeezed shut, and wraps metallic fingers around the sphere.

It’s hot enough that his prosthetic starts glowing a deep red.

_“Barnes!”_

With a deep-throated yell, he yanks the sphere from its stand and smashes it against the floor.

\-----

The Kimoyo beads around Shuri’s wrist begin to glow.

The core groans as she frantically re-enters the calibration codes, displeased by the necessity of the bipolar commands in such a short period of time, but holds.

The world rights itself.

\-----

Isabelle is just about to be overwhelmed by sheer numbers when a bright flash of light lights up the inside of Barnes’ starship.

An invisible wave passes over them all. Her ears pop as the pressure drops; she no longer feels as though she’d be yanked off the surface of the planet. There’s a noticeable shift in the air; a tangible sense of relief and revenge and rage, just before the doors open and the Hatut Zeraze yell their way through, vibranium weapons humming in response to their bloodlust.

She dives out of the way; gravity is back online and bullets will be working again. Besides, she has no interest in taking this away from the War Dogs, who had been less than thrilled to have been sidelined for most of the mission but had finally conceded to Shuri’s cold, razor-sharp commands.

Their fury is one to behold, she thinks, as she peeks from cover. Her gaze flicks upwards, landing on Barnes, who’s just emerging from the ship above her. He’s crouching, his helmeted head tilted to somewhere past her.

She follows his gaze to a marauder, heavily armed and armored, squeezing through the narrow opening of a malfunctioning bulkhead. The exit is not in the schematics she’d memorized - which means Shuri hadn’t explored it yet.

With a shout, she launches into a run, but Barnes had caught on much faster, having leaped down the ladder, already at pace with her. They sprint across the hangar, through the bulkhead, but the marauder has a head-start and is already much further down the dark corridor.

He also has an assault rifle.

Isabelle and Barnes throw themselves behind a pillar just as bullets rain down upon them. It feels like an endless barrage, but when the marauder shifts to reload, she primes her omni-tool and launches a Sabotage.

The panicked yell of the marauder as his weapon overheats and backfires is immensely satisfying.

Barnes shoots forward. The marauder tries to flee but Barnes’ prosthetic blurs forward, grabbing onto his hardsuit and slamming him into the wall. “Who are you?” he snarls as Isabelle makes her way over. “Where did you come from?”

The marauder struggles in vain, but Barnes’ palm pins him to the wall effortlessly.

Isabelle sidles up to him. “See, I’ve had a bad few weeks,” she says conversationally. “He’s had a bad few _decades_. I wouldn’t test his patience. He might just decide to crush your rib cage in.”

The marauder gasps as Barnes presses against his chestplate further, then chuckles. “Oh, I know exactly what you’re capable of, _Winter Soldier_ ,” he says hoarsely.

A chill runs down Isabelle’s spine. She inches closer, and through the visor, she can make out his eyes.

Wide and bright with madness.

“ _Cut off one head…_ ” he snarls and makes an odd motion with his mouth.

As though he’s biting down on something.

“ _No!_ ” Barnes shouts, shoving her aside so hard she tumbles to the floor. Her head snaps up to see him trying to pry open the helmet, but it’s too late - the marauder’s already started foaming at the mouth.

His eyes roll back and he starts jerking wildly, prompting Barnes to snarl and release him. It takes only seconds for the agent to expire, but for the both of them, it feels like decades - an echo of the time spent under the merciless Nazi thumb of an organization that never dies.

Isabelle meets his eyes and reads in them the words the agent had implied.

**_Two more shall take its place._ **

###  **Sol 1 [Earth Date: August 17th, 2025]**

####  **Common Area**

Even though the facility had rovers, without the bridge there was no way out. With all the marauders dead or otherwise accounted for, there was no immediate danger, so they had brainstormed a plan to broadcast a general distress signal across any available channels.

A plan that turned out to be moot when Monica Rambeau and Bruce piloted a shuttle through the storm just a few hours later in a belated rescue attempt.

“The marauders came from Lowell City,” she admits when they’ve all caught up. One of the Hatut Zeraze scowls and goes to say something, but snaps his mouth shut when Shuri glares. “Late arrivals; not part of the main expedition. Weren’t vetted properly, but had some impressive credentials.”

“From someone interesting?”

Monica meets her eyes. “Loads. Secretary Thaddeus Ross, few others. Not forged, from what I can tell.”

“I look forward to seeing how this backfires on him,” Shuri says dangerously.

“I wouldn’t hold my breath,” Isabelle shakes her head. “Ross’ gotten out of worse scrapes. Who were they?”

“Scientists, engineers of some measure. Nothing too great. Didn’t interact with anyone, didn’t create trouble. Occasionally disappeared into the storm; I assume to find alternate underground entrances and to secretly map out the facility.”

“Did they steal the weapons?”

Monica shakes her head, looking perturbed. “All colonists have them. We decided on that pretty early on. Lowell has the support of defense contractors supported by _Henry Lawson_ …” the emphasis is so subtle, only Isabelle catches it, “ - so it’s strictly a last resort, to stave off any potential attacks. No one would’ve looked at them twice for that than any other reason.”

She sighs heavily, reminding Isabelle that it’s been just as long a day for her. “Question is - what were they looking for?”

###  **Sol 3 [Earth Date: August 19th, 2025]**

####  **Vault**

The vault is colossal and spiral-like, its overhanging walkways extending deep into the dimly lit darkness. Each level is labyrinthine in its design; one could easily get lost if not for the floor lighting marking ways to the exits.

And in the center of the spiral hovers an unquestionably alien artifact. Suspended by an unknown mechanism, it’s huge and almost childlike in its simplicity - just a long, thin monolith, paneled, with a strip of blue light - presumably power indicator - running along the length of the device. Shrouded in a mysterious golden haze, it is protected by barrier curtains similar to the ones securing the hangar ceiling hatches.

Around the ring-like floor are various hastily put together terminals - distinctly human in design - directly linked to the monolith, which Shuri tells her is a massive databank. Somehow, over the course of several months, the marauders had infiltrated the facility, set up shop, and had managed to interface the monolith.

All of it, under the Hatut Zeraze’s noses, who had focused all of their energy on distrusting Bruce instead.

Shuri is livid.

Isabelle leans over the railing as far as she dares, peering at where the green bleeds into the black. It’s a hell of a long way down. She shivers as a sense of foreboding settles over her. It’s not just vertigo; the entire damn place that’s giving her the creeps.

“The marauders managed to upload some of the data before you stopped them,” Rambeau says, sidling up to her. “I’d bet my left foot that Lawson just got access to a hell of a lot more alien data for his unstoppable army.”

“You get anything?”

“More visual documentation,” she says, grimacing. “Footage from skull implants. Apparently, the Protheans weren’t just content with satellite surveillance on their... guinea pigs. They were directly _observing the Cro-Magnons’ perspective._ ”

There’s a brief silence. Isabelle imagines having a chip inside her, recording her every move, perhaps even controlling her. She shivers. “Implant surveillance indicates they were waiting, watching for a reaction. To what?”

Rambeau straightens. “Lawson was trying to find a correlation between the Protheans and the Kree. The two species would’ve never met, but they… influenced humanity in similar ways.” She doesn’t meet Isabelle’s eyes. “There’s strong evidence that the Protheans might’ve been studying the effects of eezo - and variations thereof - on the human genetic makeup.”

Isabelle stiffens. “Red sand.”

“Or something much more stable and permanent. Their very own Terrigen Crystals.”

She should be used to her past haunting her footsteps everywhere she goes. Coulson had attempted to help by circulating a cover story involving fledgling criminal triads on Mars accidentally whipping up the drug, but it hadn’t stopped Isabelle from feeling the weight of her failure. “The starships were for first-hand observation and capture. This was a _research center_.”

She turns to Rambeau. “Why? To fight a war they couldn’t win, like the Kree?”

“You’d have to ask a fifty-thousand-year dead race.”

“What makes you think they’re _dead_?”

“Because their interest in _homo sapiens_ proper bordered on _obsession_.” Rambeau’s eyes are dark, shadowed. “I know one or two things about obsessions.”

“There’s very little that can truly pull you away from them.”

###  **Sol 5 [Earth Date: August 21st, 2025]**

####  **Common Area**

“Sam Wilson claimed the Circle was heading to Mars. _Why?_ ”

It’s one of the last pieces of the puzzle nagging at her, the very first mention of Mars that she could remember. It’d been buried under the myriad of ‘distractions’, but she has finally cleared away all the clutter.

Shuri grimaces. “You saw those starships in the hangar? They’re outfitted with eezo drive cores. From what I can tell, it’s capable of generating FTL travel and artificial gravity.”

Isabelle’s eyes widen. In hindsight, it seems obvious. Eezo’s existence is proof that reducing the mass of an entire starship to a point where velocities faster than the speed of light are utterly possible, avoiding pesky little things like _time dilation_. She’s still bitter about Svartalfheim. “You wanted to retrofit the Circle with eezo drives, see if it worked. Where was it headed?”

“Charon, Pluto’s moon. Some of the data we managed to translate mentions something big,” Shuri continues. “Our deep space scans suggest that something’s shifted, changed in the past few years. Nothing alarming, but still interesting.”

Isabelle snaps her fingers. “And the stasis tech - just in case the drives malfunctioned but they still had the fuel to make the journey the long way around. Won’t take them years to reach. Just hours.”

“ _Minutes_ , actually,” Shuri shrugs. “But Charon’s gonna have to wait a bit. We have bigger concerns…”

She tells them about her suspicions on the vibranium EMP.

Isabelle hates to admit that it’s a perfectly plausible theory. “The Circle’s core needed to be offline before it could be replaced. All the defenses were down. Paine could’ve downloaded something then. I’m sorry, Your Highness.”

She doesn’t mention that F.R.I.D.A.Y. had similarly taken advantage of the situation. The fact that she hadn’t done it out of malicious intent is cold comfort.

“You helped save my people. You don’t need to apologize. The Wakandans owe your family a great debt, Agent Collins.”

Something in her gut tightens. “I’m not keeping score.”

“But we are.” She sighs. “I’m sorry I never met your brother. From Bruce’s descriptions, he’d have loved this.”

He’d have been terrified of it, Isabelle doesn’t correct. Terrified of the implications, of the knowledge, of the threat that the presence of an alien ruin right at their backyard would represent. She struggles to answer, but Shuri has already turned to Barnes, apparently waiting for a reply to a question Isabelle hadn’t heard.

“His Majesty...” Barnes goes to say.

“Drop it, Bucky,” Shuri scolds. “We’re on _Mars_ , inside an _alien ruin_ , surrounded by _physics-shattering tech_. Formality doesn’t belong here.”

“Fair enough,” he shrugs. “T’Challa’s pulling some strings, laying the foundation for the possibility of exchanging - ” he waves his hands around, “ - all _this_ with the world to improve international relations. He wants you to lead it.”

Isabelle can’t detect any guile on his face. So, Fury had been wrong about his motivations.

She ignores the voice which says - _**as were you.**_

Shuri slumps in relief. “I can’t imagine the Elders were too pleased.”

Something sour settles in his face. “They don’t have much of a leg to stand on, not after the Circle. _Definitely_ not after this monumental cock-up.” His eyes flick to the Hatut Zeraze moving around listlessly. “T’Challa’s not going to be pleased that there was a hostage situation even _before_ the marauders invaded.”

Shuri shrugs. “To be fair - I didn’t _want_ to leave. There’s so much to learn here! But yes -,” she looks over to Akili, face twisting in distaste, “ - I suspect I’d have faced... _resistance_ had I requested a vacation.”

Barnes hums. “You got any ideas?”

“Oh, a few,” she says, brightening. “Bruce and I’ve been talking for a while. He’s asked to remain here to welcome the Lowell scientists - the legitimate ones, that is - back into the fold. And for myself, well…”

She grins.

“I expect my position at the Wakandan International Outreach will be very helpful.”

* * *

Barnes corners her when she’s least expecting it. “Rambeau mentioned Henry Lawson. What’s he got to do with this?”

“None of your business.” She pushes away from the wall she was leaning on. She really should be more careful, but she’s exhausted and strung out and desperately wants a good, long soak in a swimming pool. Or maybe the Atlantic.

“I think I’m owed some quid pro quo here,” he says, intercepting her route, “ - considering I _saved your life_ and didn’t tell Shuri about you and the red sand.”

Her eyes flash blue. “That doesn’t even come _close_ to making us even.”

“The Soldier’s _dead_ ,” he bursts out. “The training remains, but Shuri made sure that _I_ can’t be brainwashed, ever. Doesn’t matter what they try - the chair, triggers, signals - I’m immune to all of it. My mind is my own, Collins.”

She’s not sure if she hates him more or less now. Because, if he’s right, it’s Bucky Barnes she faces - _James Buchanan Barnes_ , a Howling Commando whose stories she’d heard growing up - not a ghost assassin. And that’s not a burden she’s willing to carry. “I don’t care. I see no difference between you and them.”

“Funny,” he says, an edge in his tone. “I was about to say the same thing.”

Isabelle recoils.

They’re at an impasse, neither willing to trust the other, even though both of them are standing at the precipice of a steep cliff, on the verge of plunging to their deaths. The veil between her conscious mind and the memories best left buried is too thin - she doesn’t want anything to do with him.

But even in her darkest moments, she has known that he’s never had a choice. While she has never had that excuse to fall back on.

She breaks off the staring contest, puts some necessary distance between them. Scrubs down her face harshly. “You spent time with Paine,” she mutters. “Impressions?”

He frowns, but answers readily enough. “A man loyal to one thing only - _science_. He doesn’t care who funds him - S.H.I.E.L.D., HYDRA, anybody else... as long as he gets what he wants.”

“Which is?”

“ _Übermensch_.”

She nods, the puzzle finally complete. The events of the past seven months run through her mind.

**_Erich Paine. Red sand. Henry Lawson, S.H.I.E.L.D., benefactor, New Dawn Foundation, eugenics. An unstoppable army._ **

**_Mars, eezo, vaults._ ** **HYDRA** _._

She takes a deep breath and tells him everything.

“You think _Henry Lawson’s_ HYDRA.” He doesn’t sound incredulous, just thoughtful.

She never thought _gratitude_ could feel corrosive. “He knew things he couldn’t have known otherwise.” Ice trickles down her spine as a thought occurs to her. “How likely is it that it’s just one cell that survived?”

“Does it matter? Just one cell is enough.” He exhales explosively, looks off into the distance with a haunted expression. “We can’t tell anyone about this. We don’t know how far this goes - whether this is Operation Paperclip all over again.”

“I’ve done this without backup once, Barnes - it didn’t work out so well. This is bigger than the both of us.” There’s a pause as she debates whether to voice her thoughts, but then thinks - **_screw it._ ** She’s in the deep end anyway. “... Coulson’s clear. He’s always been.”

He stares at her for a long moment. It’s not as if he can stop her. But some part of her is curious for his reaction, or perhaps is just waiting for an excuse to beat him up again; she really can’t tell.

“HYDRA was ecstatic when they found out he died in the Battle of New York.”

“He’ll take that as a compliment. But… it’s just gonna be you and him. I... I’m not getting involved in this.”

“ _Collins_...”

“Paine... _experimented_ on me.” She struggles mentally, then gives in. “On _us_.” It’s hard to admit that they’d both been in the petri dish. “And Lawson... for some reason, he’s singled out my family. Might have something to do with Terrigenesis. He has eyes everywhere, ears everywhere else.”

It feels bitter admitting it, but there’s also a part of her that’s relieved she doesn’t have to go up against _HYDRA_ again. Sometimes she wonders if she’ll ever be rid of them. “I might be able to sniff around under the radar, check for something fishy. But that’s about it.”

“... alright, copy. Tell Coulson. I’ll be in touch.” He turns to leave.

“… Barnes.”

“Don’t give me a reason to come after you,” she warns.

His eyes widen slightly, and she knows he can tell what she means.

**_Don’t let them take you. Don’t let them turn you. Don’t let them win._ **

He nods. “Same to you.”

###  **November 5th, 2025**

####  **Wakandan International Outreach Centre**

**Oakland, California**

“The Elders aren’t happy,” T’Challa claims quietly, somehow poised and graceful even when sinking into the plush couch. The warm glow from the fireplace drapes across the royal lounge, driving away the cold that she still hasn’t gotten used to.

“They think the United Nations spat at our generosity, that their reaction is somehow an indication that the outside world does not deserve our gifts, that they’ll never appreciate them.”

Shuri snorts as she refills her coffee mug, and adds some of her favorite flavored creamers. “It isn’t a question of _deserving_ ,” she retorts, her fingers curling around her mug. “That’s not why we do this. They need us, and there might come a time when we need them.”

“I agree with your every word, Shuri. And I apologize for not acting sooner.”

She shakes her head. “You acted at exactly the right time, brother. You did what was right. Anything less, or anything more, and you would not be king. I know that. I just wish the Elders did too.”

T’Challa shrugs. “I understand them, to an extent. The UN’s reaction in Vienna years ago had been... humbling. The only reason I did not retreat was that we expected something of the sort.”

They hadn’t been naive enough to think the UN would immediately trust them. Not when Wakanda had hidden and watched from the shadows for a thousand years while the rest of the world burned, while her neighbors had suffered under the hands of the colonizers. So, they’d overprepared for a dangerous response from the UN, and had been doled a negative, but a manageable one.

Whereas back home, the Elders, in a futile attempt to plunge their country back into isolation, had made the situation _worse_. Their intentions might not have been malicious, but their actions had still cost Wakanda dearly.

“This time, it’ll be better,” she says fiercely. “It has to be.”

Her brother smiles. “It already _is_ better, Shuri.”

It’s the perfect strategy, she thinks. Exposing the Prothean ruins to the entire world had been a gamble, yes, but one that had paid off. International courts are still battling over who owned the ruins, and they’ll continue to do so for a long while to come, she suspects.

But that’s T’Challa’s domain - and he’s playing his role perfectly, playing the leaders of the other nations like a fiddle, distracting them while she performs her magic.

She’s gathered experts from all over the globe; renowned and obscure, men and women and those in between and those that are neither, Africans and Americans and Chinese and Indians and Japanese, linguists and analysts and computer engineers and astrophysicists, people from everywhere and people from nowhere - and coordinated them into a global effort to access and translate the information found in the ruins.

It’s an enormous project, a massive undertaking the likes of which has never been seen before. She hadn’t expected the sheer strength of the community - how with each addition, their collective processing strength expands exponentially, like a hive mind. But unlike a hive mind, they’re all individuals from all walks of life, with unique experiences that bring them all together to solve one monumentally breathtaking problem.

It’s awe-inspiring.

She’s privileged to be a part of this.

T’Challa’s eyes flick sideways to the other occupant of her sofa. He smiles gently. “You have been strangely quiet, Mother.”

Shuri turns, links fingers with the Queen Mother of Wakanda, looking even more regal than T’Challa in her white cylindrical headdress. She’s beaming, her eyes sparkling with joy as she looks at them. Ramonda shakes her head.

“I have nothing to say. I am surrounded by my children, watching them grow into beautiful, wise people, ushering Wakanda, and the world to a new era, to a new way of life. I could not ask for anything more. I am grateful and thankful and honored to witness this.”

Shuri blinks back sudden tears. T’Challa’s eyes are suspiciously shiny.

“I think I can speak for your father when I say - you both have made us so very proud.”

_“So very proud."_

* * *

* * *

Context is in the Chapter Text Area because I overshot the limit in the End Notes.

**MCU Context**

**Vibranium EMP**

I really wanted to explore the concept of Wakandans without vibranium. Shuri, for all her intelligence, seems to be an expert in vibranium, and only in vibranium. Even with Vision, with the whole ‘reprogram synapses to work collectively’ thing was more about vibranium than the Mind Stone. At least, that’s my headcanon.

I wanted to see what Shuri would do if vibranium just failed all around her. Obviously, I couldn’t do this in Wakanda, because everything works on vibranium there, and their whole culture would collapse without it. I didn't have time to really get into her psyche the way I wanted, but I'm happy with where this ended up, regardless.

For mass effect fans, I’ve found that Wakandans’ excessive reliance on vibranium eerily mirrors the way the entire galaxy is balanced on eezo and the mass effect phenomenon. I couldn’t help but capitulate on the parallels.

I especially loved the fact that the EMP was repurposed from her own technology.

**Monica Rambeau and Shuri**

Rambeau seemed to have a unique insight into aliens, having encountered, or at least heard of two species in her youth, and being exposed to even more, then, eventually, ending up as an alien experiment herself. I like to think there’s no one better to discover the motives of a new (really old) alien species.

Shuri’s already an expert at manipulating and figuring out the properties of a mysterious mineral/element, despite her youth. So she discovers mass effect physics and how to work eezo.

I loved the thematic connotations of this - each playing to their own strengths. We’ll learn what they’ve discovered in the upcoming chapters.

**UN Vienna Reaction**

The movie, Black Panther, ended with T’Challa exposing the truth about Wakanda and vibranium. In my headcanon, it didn’t go well. Even realistically, it’s gonna take a lot of work for the UN to trust them again.

**Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Context**

**Element Zero and Gravitonium**

Fans of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. might have noticed that eezo shares a lot of properties with another element that made an appearance in the show - gravitonium.

It’s why I clearly stated the difference - eezo manipulates mass; gravitonium, as the name suggests, manipulates gravity. There’s a huge difference. Mass is an inherent property of any matter, while gravity is a force of attraction between objects that have mass. Without mass, there’s no gravity.

I’m probably oversimplifying it but I think this is the main reason why eezo is more powerful. It can affect mass and gravity, while gravitonium is limited only to gravity.

But yeah, very very similar properties. I was debating on whether to make them the same thing, but decided not to, in the end.

The most important reason was dark energy. Eezo releases dark energy when subjected to electric current, while gravitonium has nothing to do with dark energy.

And, as mentioned earlier, dark energy plays a huge, huge role in this fic.

**Mass Effect Context**

**Sol**

Sol is a solar day on Mars, which is slightly different from a regular twenty-four-hour Earth-day. I’ve added the Earth-dates in an attempt to resolve this confusion.

You might’ve noticed that the Sol dates are different for Shuri and Collins. That’s because Shuri was there first; she’s been there for months - her counter is different to Collins, who’s been there for hours, maybe days.

**Stock of Armaments**

In canon, most human colonists choose to keep weapons in their home - especially in places where military presence isn’t all that active - in order to stave off pirate attacks until support arrives.

**Element Zero, Dark Energy and Mass Manipulation**

I hope, with the extensive information provided here, it’s clear why the red sand worked the way it did on the baseline humans - manipulation of mass is basically what telekinesis is all about, isn’t it?

**Vaults**

Canon has mentioned the presence of loads of vaults filled with data troves and relics that have never been studied. I filled in some of the gaps in that concept.

**Protheans and Kree**

I couldn’t help compare Protheans and the Kree. I mean, Henry Lawson certainly picked up on the fact that both alien species, separated by 50,000 years, decided to experiment on early humans. The Kree got Inhumans, and the Protheans, well… we’ll see later what it is that they were doing, and why.

**Scientific and Political Upheaval**

Canonically, the discovery of Prothean ruins on Mars sent the whole world into a tizzy. Courts did argue a lot about who actually owned the ruins, and this part was very interesting to me, because both Wakanda and the Peak were claiming they found it first, and no one can prove it. Wakanda monopolized the ruins, scientists - ostensibly from Lowell City - stole the data, and now everyone is forced to walk across this political landmine.

Also in canon, the scientists came forward, banding together to translate the data. Pooling their knowledge, they did it within a year of discovery, propelling humanity's technology light-years into the future, both literally and figuratively.

I loved that T'Challa and Shuri as representatives of those two spheres. Each playing to their own strengths, just like I did with Shuri and Rambeau. Shuri's idea of sharing technology works well with the Wakandan International Outreach Center first mentioned in Black Panther's epilogue. Her role? The head of _science and information exchange._ Sure it was meant to share vibranium, but in this crossover-universe that I'm creating, why not eezo too?

**General Context**

**Übermensch**

Übermensch is basically the philosophy of the super-man (not the DC character). The perfect paradigm of humanity. Physical, physiological, emotional, moral. Absolute perfection in all aspects. Erich Paine and Henry Lawson are trying to achieve this through science.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** A/N: **
> 
> I'm going to miss Chadwick Boseman something fierce. One of the reasons why the transitions in this chapter might seem rushed is because I spent a lot of time perfecting that epilogue between T'Challa, Shuri, and Queen Mother Ramonda. 
> 
> T'Challa was a magnificent king, but the thing that captured me the most about him in the movies is how fiercely he loves his family. It is the quiet moments I'll miss the most - the teasing with Shuri, the respect and love he has for his mother, the conversations with his father - both in Vienna and the Astral Plane. 
> 
> It's why I decided to make that epilogue soft, a family piece, instead of taking the noble king road. I wanted that sense of family, of home, of quiet pride in their accomplishments. The sense of future. I wanted it all to be, well, positive, and warm.
> 
> I hope I've done him justice. 
> 
> Rest in power, King. Wakanda Forever.
> 
> It's why I decided to make that epilogue soft, a family piece, instead of taking the noble king road. I wanted that sense of family, of home, of quiet pride in their accomplishments. The sense of future. I wanted it all to be, well, positive, and warm.
> 
> I hope I've done him justice. 
> 
> Rest in power, King. Wakanda Forever.


	20. Mystic Veil of Shadowy Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two universes - once assumed to be reassuringly distinct, but revealed to have collided eons ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year! Hope it's better than the last one. 
> 
> My sincere apologies for the very, very late update. 
> 
> To be perfectly honest, I'd written this chapter and a few others during Nanowrimo of 2020. It's only in December that I realized that Nanowrimo, while brilliant for getting words out there, does not lead to a _good_ story in and of itself. I discovered significant plot holes in everything I'd written, and had to overhaul a lot to get it to something resembling a coherent narrative. 
> 
> I'm really, really sorry. Suffice to say, I will not be attempting Nanowrimo until I've done some intensive plotting beforehand.
> 
> But, in the interest of making amends, I have updated, not one, but _four_ chapters.
> 
> Well, sorta.
> 
> You see, stories evolve. Sometimes beyond our ken. And that is a good thing. You might feel as though the initial plotting you've done for your story would suffice, but it's only later, when you're actually into a few chapters that you realize - damn, this could've been so much better if I'd done it way.
> 
> It's only now, coming on almost a year since I started posting do I realize - some of the earlier chapters have major issues with them. Especially the Svartalfheim arc. Some characters, some plot lines are redundant now, no longer applicable to where I'm taking the story. Frankly, I'm glad I'm getting rid of them because I never much liked them in the first place. I don't know what I was thinking when I wrote them.
> 
> Or whether I was thinking at all.
> 
> So, I request you to please re-read the three chapters involving the Svartalfheim arc - 
> 
> 5\. Upon Whose Brow Famine had Written Fiend  
> 6\. The World Was Void  
> 7\. She was the Universe
> 
> I've made some _major_ changes - changes that will be referenced _heavily_ in the upcoming chapters. Without that new context, things will NOT make sense in the next few arcs. I apologize for the inconvenience, but I believe it also to be a way to redeem myself.
> 
> Thanks a lot.
> 
> I also cannot guarantee any sort of update schedule any longer. I'm in my final semester, and my workload is mind-boggling. I don't think my future hiatuses will be as long as the recent one, but... honestly, I can't say.
> 
> **WARNING:** This is a very sciency chapter. Lots of revelations at the end. I tried to smooth it as much as possible, but I'm not sure whether I succeeded completely. Let me know your thoughts

_Night comes and stars their wonted vigils keep_

_In soft unfathomable depths of sky:_

_In_ _mystic veil of shadowy darkness_ _lie_

_The_ infinite expanses of the deep,—

\- Night; E. G. A. Holmes

  
  


In a darkened conference room aboard the space station known as Peak VII, four individuals are faintly illuminated by bluish holograms rotating in the center of the room.

So far, Soren has been silent. After hours of debate, they’ve narrowed down their list of potentials to just four. And for once, Nick Fury’s choice is utterly predictable.

“Despite your misgivings, Talos,” he says, “ - Collins is an elite soldier. We’re planning on subjecting our candidates through the worst; she’s already been through it.”

“Fine. Then I vote for him,” Talos replies, tossing another hologram into the mix.

Fury’s face visibly pinches at the virtual likeness of Bucky Barnes. Soren feels a familiar empathy curling in her bones. Talos has never been one for direct arguments; he prefers to make his displeasure known through passive-aggressive actions.

While his choice has less to do with the actual proficiency of the White Wolf and more to do with his unabated hostility towards Aquamarine, it’s not completely subjective. For their fledgling program to be a success, they need the _crème de la crème_ , and even Fury can’t disagree that Barnes qualifies.

She arches an exasperated eyebrow at Maria Hill, who picks up on the subtle cues of tension radiating from the men. “We need a baseline human,” she says loudly. “To balance things out between an Enhanced and a Gifted. I propose one _Alec Ryder._ ”

Fury turns pensive as he reviews the detailed assessment. Excellent grades, but… “ - risky to have someone new this early in the game, Hill.”

“He’s hardly a raw recruit. Proved himself in the Second Civil War by shaping the battlefield using a combination of engineering and ingenuity. His designs are skirting on the edge of legality,” she snorts, “ - typical of the system to complain about the tech that _saved_ them - so I bagged him before someone else could.”

“But would he be a suitable trial run?”

“Can’t think of anyone better.”

Fury inclines his head. “Soren, last one’s on you.”

She hums. She’d already made her choice but had held back just in case their decisions affected hers, even though, somewhere deep down, she’d known they wouldn’t. It’s surprisingly hard to admit her true reason - she’d been stalling. “I want one of our own,” she murmurs, pitching a hologram from her tablet.

Predictably, Talos stiffens, instantly forgetting all about Collins in light of the gauntlet she’d just thrown. “We’re not at war, anymore, Soren,” he warns. “Our children do not need to grow up the way we did.”

“We’ve been at war for a thousand years, Talos. A couple of decades of faked peace is not a reprieve - Thanos reminded us of that. We have a responsibility to send our best, and our daughter _is_ the best.”

After a long moment, he nods, resigned. He turns towards Fury, has banished all holos but for their candidates.

The first line of defense, the brightest of the species inhabiting the Sol system. If the program is successful, many more will come.

Fury sighs.

“I’ll make the call.”

* * *

###  **June 26th, 2026**

####  **Singapore International Spaceport**

**Docking Bay**

Despite being on edge, James Rhodes' love of aviation kicks in at the sight of his assigned corvette.

He is leaning against the railing, admiring the streamlined elegance of the _PSV Albatross_ when he feels her presence. A tingle runs down his back; a phantom memory of mischievous fingers trailing his spine, making him shiver.

As always, she’s surprised when he turns - having trained to be as silent as inhumanly possible. There was a time he’d relished that look of startled amazement.

Now, all it does is make him feel old.

“Didn’t think you’d go to such lengths to avoid me,” Izzy murmurs.

He suppresses a flinch.

Jim had been busy dealing with the aftermath of the Second Civil War when the reveal of alien ruins on Mars had flooded the airwaves. The Decimation is still an unhealed wound; he’d been forced to fast-talk his way into a very loose alliance with the military and S.W.O.R.D. (ostensibly S.H.I.E.L.D. - Fury’s little space project is _highly_ classified) to prevent mass panic.

The catch was a rushed promotion to Brigadier General - a rank that still feels somewhat unearned - and the newfound responsibilities that had hardly left time for his marriage. Stolen moments in between endless meetings were more frustrating than rewarding.

“I’m an Air Force liaison to S.W.O.R.D.,” he tries. “When the President personally asks me to oversee a scientific expedition to the _edge of the solar system_ , I can’t exactly refuse.”

She’s shaking her head before he’s even finished. “You don’t get to pull that. Fury briefed me. He made it a _request_ , not an order - which means whatever this is, it’s big.” She purses her lips. “He also said you did your damnedest to sideline me for this mission.”

Her eyes flicker, dart away. “Is this because of my no-show at the Battle of Washington?”

“ _Jesus_ , no,” he says, running a hand down his face. “That wasn’t on you. Wakanda needed you to put out those fires more than DC.”

There’s a pause, and for a brief, panicked second, he thinks he’s lost her but then she slips in and links arms with him. Some of the tension from his shoulders drains from where his skin brushes against hers. He sighs in relief, letting her bear his weight for a moment.

“Then why? I’m trying not to take this personally, Rhodey...”

“I didn’t want you anywhere near this,” he blurts.

Izzy stares. “What are you trying to protect me from?”

“You didn’t check the flight manifest, did you?”

She shakes at the apparent non-sequitur. “Didn’t have time; I only got the call this morning.”

Jim nods over her shoulder. “I suppose you won’t have to, now.”

He watches her honing in on the cluster of individuals huddled near the dock of the _Albatross_. It’s like watching an avalanche, a slow slide into inescapable, terrifying realization.

She walks forward - confusion warring with anxiety across her face. He wipes his own clean of all emotion as he falls in, just in time to overhear Monica Rambeau. “Shame Selvig isn’t here. I was looking forward to picking his brain.”

Master Wong - not a scientist, but an expert in his own way - shuffles in place. “Has there been any word from him, Dr. Foster?”

“He hasn’t been picking up my calls,” Jane admits. “S.H.I.E.L.D. claims they couldn’t find him. For once, I’m inclined to believe them.”

Bruce Banner nods. “He wouldn’t have missed this for anything.”

“Could’ve used someone else on the ‘Snapped-scientists’ boat,” Princess Shuri, the science lead of the expedition, mock-grouses.

“Let me guess,” Izzy finally interjects, exchanging an incomprehensible glance with Rambeau, “ - the Decimation made it a _very small world._ ”

Jane shifts in place. “Tony brought us all together,” she says, squaring her shoulders under the full force of his wife’s attention. Her eyes rove across Izzy’s face with a desperation he’s guilty of as well - as though trying to find the brother in the sister’s features. “We worked for five years to reverse the effects of Thanos’ Snap. To... bring you home.”

In the ensuing silence, Jim watches his wife as the pieces fall into place, but he can tell she’s still shying away from considering the _specifics_ of this particular group’s involvement in the Decimation.

He’s not watching an avalanche. He’s _under_ one.

Rambeau snorts, an uncharacteristically bleak look on her face. “Turns out, all we needed to figure out was _time travel_. Five years of work, washed down the drain. Story of my life.”

“Knowledge is never useless, Monica, even when not immediately applicable.” Jane sighs. “Tony taught me that.”

“If not for time travel,” Izzy says. Jim’s stomach plummets to his knees. “What were you working on?”

It’s Banner who finally answers. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“We were looking to _rebuild the Infinity Stones_.”

* * *

####  **Briefing Room**

**_PSV Albatross_**

The scientists cluster around one half of the circular holo-table, opposite Rhodey, Hill, and Fury. Isabelle has eschewed assembling in favor of leaning against one of the windows, eyes fixed unseeingly at the blue shimmering waves of FTL interrupting the dark banality of space.

**_Tony never liked to back just one strategy._ **

Coulson had said that after she’d returned from Svartalfheim. Still reeling from the aftereffects of Gabriel Reyes’ exorcism, she hadn’t questioned him further. In hindsight, rebuilding the Infinity Stones sounds just like the kind of impossible project Tony would’ve backed in his grief-fueled desperation.

The sound of a throat clearing yanks her out of her reverie.

Shuri is pulling up some images of the Prothean vaults. A miniature wireframe of the monolith is displayed front and center, slowly rotating over the table. “Global efforts to decipher records found in the Prothean observation post have yielded mixed results. While we’ve cracked the secrets of eezo and FTL travel, translation of historical records is still ongoing.”

“However, there are patterns in the data that are concerning, not only to the international scientific community, but the world leaders as well, for reasons that will shortly be clear.”

A holographic icy orb replaces the images of the vaults. “Charon,” Rambeau says, “ - largest of Pluto’s moons. Super unremarkable - low gravity, lower temperatures, no atmosphere worth a damn. But… the Prothean data makes repeated mentions to a massive device nearby.”

A frown crisscrosses Fury’s forehead. “What device? Gagarin’s automated scanners have been combing that entire section for months; there’s nothing there.”

“Fifty-thousand years is a long time,” Talos points out. “Maybe whatever it was got destroyed beyond recovery of debris. Or maybe it got, I don’t know, _towed away_.”

The implication descends like a shroud.

Shuri clears her throat. “We’d have left it at that, if not for the fact that the layer of ice has been disturbed recently, starting with as recent as a decade.”

“By what?”

Rambeau hesitates. “... spring of 2018, the Peak was on the far side of Luna, undergoing some necessary repairs. Comms and sensors were down, so we didn’t notice a giant alien donut entering Earth’s orbit, followed by an even bigger spaceship.”

Fury sighs heavily.

She brings up a graph, traces the sudden, sharp increase on an otherwise level line. “Our first indication of trouble was when I recorded a spike of dark energy near Charon, so massive it overloaded my sensors and set my workshop on fire.” She swallows roughly. “I was so intent on recovering what I could - I didn’t notice my friends turning to dust behind me until the screaming started.”

The silence hangs thick and heavy.

“Of course, we had much bigger problems after that, so it got completely buried... until five years later, when the phenomenon occurred _three more times_ , in the span of half an hour.”

Isabelle is adept at shoving aside her memories by latching on to the nearest distraction, so she’s the first to recover and bridge the dots. “Four mysterious energy bursts... coinciding with each time _the Infinity Gauntlet was used._ You think the energy released somehow affected this Prothean device.”

Rambeau nods. “Charon wasn’t the only spike; my sensors recorded identical bursts in different parts of the galaxy. I’m thinking this device is part of a network that… _disseminated_ the energy.” She sighs. “Just for an instant, then it vanished.”

“Have you tried looking out a window?” Bruce’s joke falls flat, unable to shatter the image running through the minds of everyone - six glowing singularities, somehow connected to this mysterious Prothean device.

Two universes - once assumed to be reassuringly distinct but revealed to have collided eons ago.

“Nothing but a big icy moon,” Rambeau confirms, then exchanges a dark look with Shuri. “There’s only one place we haven’t been able to scan yet - _beneath the surface of Charon._ ”

As if on cue, the ship falls out of FTL. It’s a sudden, jarring change, as though the ship has been yanked to a stop, even though the inertial dampeners ensure they don’t feel a thing.

The Gagarin Station materializes as a tiny, dark shadow against the backdrop of an icy expanse. The alien moon drifts past, silent and still, barely illuminated by a far-flung sun that’s only marginally larger than the stars. “Your sensors can’t penetrate the ice?”

Rambeau shakes her head. “It’s miles deep - we need specialized devices placed manually _on_ the surface to get readings.”

“I’ve modified some mining drones,” Shuri pipes up. “Once placed at predetermined locations, they’ll emit pulses and receive signals, flagging down any anomalies, similar to SONAR.”

Wong, who’s been silent so far, leans forward. “What’s a Hazard Level 2-class planet?” He’s staring at the hologram, which is now accompanied by a stream of data - relevant statistics of the celestial body.

“... temperature's _-360 degree Fahrenheit_ ,” Shuri replies. “I’ve upgraded the suits as best as I can, but disembarkation shouldn’t be necessary - the drones can be deployed from within environmentally-sealed rovers.”

Fury pushes himself to his feet. “You’ve been assigned personal quarters aboard the Gagarin. Mission’s at 1200 tomorrow. Get some rest.”

As they disperse, Isabelle’s eyes flicker to each member of this expedition. Bruce Banner, who’d assisted in exploring Loki’s Scepter, _twice_. Jane Foster, who had been almost consumed by the Aether. Wong, the only one to know anything about the Time Stone in the absence of its owner.

A group, forever incomplete, because Isabelle is a poor substitute for her brother, especially in the face of the unthinkable.

A group, once ensnared in a perversion of existence - a half-life brewed by a genocidal maniac - so much so that their lives are forever altered by exposure to powerful artifacts that haunt their footsteps even when destroyed.

A group that knows, better than most -

**_No good can ever come of the Infinity Stones._ **

* * *

####  **Personal Quarters**

**Gagarin Station**

Her dreams are less formless tonight.

_Vague shapes rise above the once-featureless, tangerine landscape. A city,_ she realizes - _with buildings that cut an impressive skyline over the horizon. In the center looms a citadel, with a distinctive shape that resembles a longship with a large sail hoisted far above the deck._

_Against the canvas, something moves. Many somethings, formless at first, undulating and pulsating. One by one, they manifest from the mist, brushing past her as though she’s little more than a shadow._

_Or perhaps_ they _are._

_No… not shadows,_ she thinks, _her fingers trailing through their muslin-thin forms._ _Ghosts._ _Their presence is heavy, making her throat go tight and hard._

_She suddenly, desperately misses the bland, featureless orange._

_Between one heartbeat and the next, a spine-chilling screech rends the dream open._

\-----

Isabelle’s eyes snap open. Her heart is pounding so loudly she can feel it in her teeth. Adrenaline is thick and bitter on her tongue, freezing her body in place as though she’s just been confronted by a black mamba.

She’d forgotten. God, how easily she’d forgotten.

Eyes dart around, analyzing her surroundings. Compact quarters - cabinets affixed to the walls, tiny bathroom, cubby hole behind her bed. A shuttered, octagonal-shaped window. Thick bedspread, soaked with her sweat. And finally, an arm, loose but comfortably heavy, thrown across her waist.

She can’t see Jim’s face, but she matches her own breaths with his deep ones until she escapes the final vestiges of that dreadful orange. When she can finally move her body, she slides out carefully. Her toes curl against the coolness of the deck, and she stumbles, catching herself against a panel interface. With a decisive swipe, she activates it.

The shutters peel back, revealing a high-definition visual of Charon. Her eyes sweep across its gargantuan surface, goosebumps erupting across her skin as the ice throws up faint reflections that paint her personal quarters.

Isabelle reaches for the small box in the cubby hole, pulls out the transdermal patches, and stares at them.

It’s twice her usual dosage.

She knows better than to get addicted. When she’d realized she was getting resistant to the ’toxin, she started alternating between the patches and draining the pool.

She has no such luxury here, aboard the Gagarin.

* * *

###  **June 27th, 2026**

####  **Charon**

The eezo-blue flare of the microthrusters sputters as it pulls up inches from the glacier. It hovers midair for a second, then settles into place with a hard thump.

“Rough landing,” Isabelle comments from the passenger’s seat.

“Got us here, didn’t it?” Rambeau activates the booster and steps on it, gritting her teeth as the wheels skid on the glass-smooth surface before it stabilizes.

The ground crew has been assigned a rover and a region to disperse Shuri’s drones. Shuri and Bruce are overseeing ops on the _Albatross_ , while Wong and Jane are re-examining Rambeau’s data on Gagarin _._

Beyond the rover, the ice stretches out to a nearly unbroken horizon, wider than any ocean back on Earth. Jagged, sharp-tipped mountains dramatically arc over the plains. The sun is a tiny speck in the sky; cold, distant, yet brighter than it has any right to be.

Rambeau’s mood seems to fit in with Charon’s desolation perfectly.

Isabelle shelves her concern - it will not be welcome, they barely know each other. But her need for answers won’t be denied any longer. Two birds with one stone - Rambeau might even appreciate a distraction. “Which one did you work on?”

“The Space Stone,” is the swift reply. “Captain Marvel was my mom’s best friend. Her powers are derived from the Tesseract. I had... notes.”

“That’s how you know Pepper. Because you worked with _Tony_ ” She glances at her sharply. “She doesn’t like you very much.”

Rambeau smiles humorlessly. “Mrs. Stark blames me for... fueling his obsession towards reversing the Snap.”

“Was she right?”

“...yes. _I_ was the one to propose the idea of rebuilding the Stones.”

Isabelle leans back against her seat, resisting the urge to ensure she’s not ashes and dust. “How is it even possible to restore something that’s been wiped from existence?”

Is she asking after the Stones, or herself?

The rover skids to a stop. Rambeau gestures over the holographic dashboard, deploying a drone. Shuri is considering ice mining operations as a dual role for the drones - it’s not as if Charon’s lacking, and the colonies on Mars and Luna could certainly use the water.

“Science,” she replies as they once again propel forward. “Everything we know about the Stones points to an undeniable conclusion - it is possible to replicate their energies, their capabilities in technological form. We already had proof of concept - a technology _derived_ from a Stone.”

Isabelle feels a shiver run down her spine. “The arc reactor,” she whispers. “But Starkium is a power source; it can’t _create portals_.”

“The design was ingenious, but limited - it just needed a few modifications. The others had to start from scratch on their own Stone counterparts.”

Rambeau draws a deep breath. “I was _this_ close to a breakthrough when he cracked time travel, rendering the entire effort moot.”

* * *

####  **Briefing Room**

**_PSV Albatross_**

“Rhodes’ drones just came online,” Bruce calls, tossing her a holo. “His rover’s well beyond the estimated radius.”

Shuri hums. “Discharge the pulses. Let’s see what we get.”

Ripples spread across the oscillating 3D graph of Charon’s topology. Shuri imagines massive ice shelves shifting and breaking apart under the impact of her tech.

“That’s not normal, is it?” He gestures to the other graph - a resolute flatline.

She shakes her head. “The flatline represents the ice... and _only_ the ice. Even without the presence of the device in that particular region, there should’ve been minor distortions... especially when detecting Charon’s crust.”

He buzzes Monica’s omni-tool. “On-site samples could provide some numbers to crunch.”

* * *

####  **Charon**

The rover swerves sharply, scouring a diverging path along the ice.

“We’re being redirected?” Isabelle asks.

“Shuri wants samples of the crust. Rhodes’ drones are equipped with automated samplers - needs proximity to activate, though.” Rambeau slams on the breaks. “He’s too far away.”

Isabelle cranes her neck. “... I don’t see anything.”

The rover blasts upward, hovering in mid-air, just long enough for her to notice the narrow rift cutting through the ice shelf a few dozen feet away. “It’s deployed down there,” Rambeau explains. “I chose it because it has to dig through the least amount of ice.”

“Good call,” Isabelle says, remotely activating the drone. “Initiating the sampler... _now_.”

Her eyes flutter shut as she registers the faintest shudders reverberate through the ice. Hairline cracks spread from the point of contact as the sampler burrows into the ground, probing for the crust that has never seen the light of day.

Something sour settles on her tongue as her mind follows the path of displaced ice. She feels the moment the sampler slams into a screeching halt, deep beneath the surface. The dashboard erupts into a variety of alarming beeps and shrieks.

Her eyes snap open. Warning red light swirls in front of her eyes. “What the hell was that?”

Rambeau swears, fingers flying. “Sampler overloaded. A malfunction of some kind. Can’t isolate the fault from here.”

“The drone was monitoring its progress - but I’m unable to access the data logs.” Isabelle thinks furiously. The rift had appeared far too narrow for the rover, but it didn’t look too deep, so maybe... “ _Water_ ice, right, not nitrogen?”

There’s a hum of affirmation.

“And environmental controls can be compartmentalized in the rover?”

Rambeau looks over suspiciously. “Yeah, I can put up a shield around the driver section. What are you planning?”

“Let me out; I’ll jump in, scan the sampler, forward you the readings.” Her brows furrow. “You should be protected by the shielding, but put on a helmet anyway.”

The younger woman blinks. “You don’t even see the line, do you?”

“Excuse me?”

“There’s adrenaline junkie, and there’s _suicidal_ , Collins. You going out there, even with Shuri’s armor mods? Is the _latter_.”

Isabelle pauses in the middle of securing her helmet seals. “My abilities allow me to thermoconform, Operative. I can grow colder than most places back on Earth.”

“I doubt you can one-up _Charon_ ,” she snarls. “I’ve read your personnel file. Even you have limits. I know that because you’ve reached them, _jumping over the line_.”

She arches an eyebrow, more amused than offended. “... I appreciate the unexpected concern. And the compliment.” Rising, she heads over to the door, a hand gripping the large latch mechanism. “I’ll sublimate the ice, create a heat shield around myself. Should keep the worst of it out.”

Rambeau exhales, shakes her head. With a few gestures on the dash, a blue shield flickers into place between the cabins. Isabelle’s side depressurizes rapidly. “Keep an eye on the hazard meter,” she warns through Isabelle’s comms.

“Will do.” With a wrench, the door opens.

——-

The deadening cold brushes past her suit’s protections and slams into the thick wall of steam she hastily erects around herself. It roils against the barrier angrily, trying to maul its way through with all the strength of eternity.

**_-360 degrees Fahrenheit. -220 degrees Celsius. Barely a few dozen Kelvins above absolute zero._ **

Isabelle gasps as her body armors itself with ice in a vain attempt to balance the scales. The suit registers the changes, alarms cacophonous in the silence of the moon. She flexes the stiffness out of her fingers and calibrates the hazard meter to adjust to her current temperature. Even so, the needle wavers between green and yellow as she steps forth.

It feels like floating, but not quite. There is gravity here, just on this side of negligible that makes her feel as though true weightlessness would’ve been more welcome. She’s being anchored to the surface by a very thin string, and she has no idea when it will snap and toss her out into the vacuum.

It’s almost cruel, that uncertainty.

She has underestimated this sunless rock.

“ _How’s it out there?_ ” Rambeau’s worry is barely concealed.

“Crispy,” she grits out and springs forward. Within a few bounds, she’s at the lip of the rift. Not too deep, no, and the pitch darkness of the fissure is broken by the faintest of reflections - the drone. “Doesn’t look damaged from here. Can’t be sure without a closer look.”

Without warning, she jumps into the rift.

* * *

####  **Observational Lounge**

**Gagarin Station**

Jane brings up the galaxy map Monica had constructed - filtered with a network of every Gauntlet surge.

Recalling to mind the latest NASA star charts, she finds she can identify some of the loci - Horsehead, Eagle, Hourglass - all nebulae, clusters of several star systems. One device per cluster then, perhaps placed within the systems themselves, like Sol.

The automated doors slide open, ushering in Wong. “Dr. Foster, may I impose on your time?”

Not as though she was doing much more than theorizing. After her experiences with the Dark World, she’s not eager to step onto another uninhabitable planet and is perfectly content to remain on the sidelines, here on Gagarin. “How can I help, Wong?”

He crosses his arms, as though debating where to begin. “When Thanos destroyed the Stones, the backlash of that act - of _self_ destroying _self_ \- created breaches across the universe.”

“I’m aware,” she says dryly. In more than one sense of the term, she doesn’t add.

“If Monica’s scans are accurate,” he gestures to the map, “ - then Charon was one of the dispersal points of Infinity Stones energy. Logic dictates that the number of breaches should be the highest on this barren moon.”

Her heart stills - then breaks into a furious gallop.

“If it’s not too much trouble, could you set up a program to scan for them?”

“Uh... that’s not necessary,” she says unthinkingly, then flushes when he arches an eyebrow. “I mean, I’ve set up all of my devices to automatically pick up breach-related readings. There’s nothing.”

“I see,” he says. Something in his tone makes sweat pool at the base of her spine. God, Jane has never been good at secrets. “Then it’s not just a scientific anomaly... but a _mystical_ one.”

“As acting Sorcerer Supreme, it is my prerogative to investigate.” He bows deeply. “Thank you, Dr. Foster. I’ll leave you to it.”

Jane turns back to the screen, staring unseeingly at the galaxy map, unease coiling in her belly.

* * *

####  **Charon**

The rift is barely deep enough to have made much of a difference for the sampler, no matter Rambeau’s thoughts on the matter. Keeping her thoughts to herself, Isabelle activates her omni-tool.

Orange light washes over the drone, identifying and discarding any potential aberrations when they come up clean, before finally highlighting the fault in a deep glowing red.

Over the comms, Rambeau hums. “ _Internal heat warp due to overload. An easy fix. Origin remains a mystery, though, especially at this temperature._ ”

“Maybe it’s the ice itself that’s the problem. How thick is the shelf?”

“ _Shuri didn’t think we needed to measure it. Those drones were built to mine vibranium pretty deep into the earth._ ”

“Yeah, but this _isn’t_ Earth.” Silence from the other end. “Maybe the sampler hit something before it could reach the crust, overloaded trying to dig past it.”

“ _Doubt it - the drone didn’t give out any anomalous readings. But... we’re dealing with alien tech; can’t be sure of anything._ ”

“Only one way to find out. I’ll reach out with my mind into the ice. We’ll know if I bounce back from anything that isn’t supposed to be here.”

“ _Collins..._ ”

“I’m good for it, Rambeau.”

Her bones creak as she crouches, an armored glove brushing the ice clear. It reflects the blackness of space above her, with no stars visible to pierce the infinity. Inexplicably, she’s reminded of Rambeau’s warning on the Peak, almost a year ago.

**_Methuselah._ **

She inhales, her breath razor-edged and silver in her throat, and casts her mind into the ice.

\-----

Initially, her senses scour _across_ the surface in an attempt to find something of foreign, artificial origin. Encountering nothing beyond the ordinary, she probes deeper, slowly at first, and then - when nothing jumps out at her - zipping down at the speed of light.

She encounters the sampler deep into the ice. Her mind trails the cylindrical form, feeling the searing heat of the fault a microsecond before it’s sucked away by the cold. The crust remains elusive, and there’s nothing nearby that could contribute to the malfunction, so she takes a metaphorical breath and plunges.

* * *

####  **Charon**

Skrulls are a prejudiced lot when it comes to Inhumans. Even more so than the Kree. So it’d be easy to brush off their warnings as paranoia - but Monica has never taken them as anything but what they are. _History_.

The truth.

Inhumans were cultivated to _destroy entire worlds_.

She knows exactly how much she can break if she’s not careful. She also knows what can break _her_.

And right up until the screaming starts, she’d fooled herself into believing Isabelle Collins did too.

Monica shoots upright as the woman’s vitals explode on the screen. “Collins!” Her startled cry is drowned out by the shrill, unearthly sounds from her comms. “What the hell is going on down there?!”

When no reply is forthcoming, she steps on it, pushes the rover as close to the edge as she dares. From this angle, she can see nothing, so she breathes, centers herself.

Outside, rays of light bend in unnatural ways, projecting an image on the back of her retinas - a trembling form curled at the bottom of the fissure. The sight confirms the scans; Collins’ symptoms aren’t a result of physical strain, but mental. She’d sent her mind into the ice. And for some reason, she wasn’t coming back out.

Monica’s pulse is skyrocketing. Helplessness rears its ugly, familiar head as she realizes she’s trapped by her own limitations. She can’t go out there; she won’t last three seconds.

Her fingers hover over the comms, an inch from connecting to the rest of _Albatross_ , but Collins’ won’t hold that long, even if they _could_ find a solution. Rhodes, the closest one to her position, doesn’t have his armor.

No, Monica is all Collins has.

And there’s precious little _she_ can do.

She slams a hand on the dash - once, twice. _Redundant._

Think. _Think._ She’s still capable of that, isn’t she? Regardless of how inept she’s become over the last year, she still has her _brains_. She still has her _gift_.

Another scream rings out.

She still has a _voice_. “I didn’t think you were capable of such sounds,” Monica blurts the first thing that pops into her mind. “But then… I didn’t think you could be this much of an idiot either, so what do I know?”

The scream ends in a choking sob. Monica pretends that she’d contributed to the difference, instead of Collins finally running out of breath. “Fuss all you like,” she mutters, focusing. “I’m not coming down there. Charon’s nippy this time of the year.”

Her fingers move in specific patterns, as though she’s coupling invisible strings. Outside, warm light - yellow, identical to the distant Sol - coalesces into a cocoon around the fetal form, cradling her. “Right about now, Jane would tell you to _‘follow her voice’_ or some such New Age-y bull. Unfortunately for both of us, all you got is me.”

Another muffled howl.

“So I’m gonna chatter your ear off until you claw your way out just to tell me to shut my trap.” This is something she can do. This is _easy_. Monica is sarcastic, irreverent, and capable of being greatly annoying when she puts her mind to it.

She can become very hard to ignore.

And so she goes, rambling incessantly, even throwing in the occasional colorful insult when the screams become too piercing. Simultaneously, she summons light from too-distant sources and coaxes them to wrap around Collins. Her control over other EM waves is shaky, but she does her best to warm her up. “... fair if I demand another partner; you’re more trouble than you’re worth…”

“ _Rambeau_ ,” a low groan effectively cuts off her stream of words. “ _Shut your trap._ ”

Monica’s laugh is hoarse, and more than a little hysterical. “Well, your noggin seems to be fine, if my name’s the first thing that pops out. What’s with the tantrum, Collins?”

Over the comms, Collins audibly swallows. “ _Overextended myself. I didn’t think…_ ”

“Yeah, I bet you didn’t.” The relief and helpless worry from earlier is morphing into a slow, simmering anger. Outside, the light burns a little hotter as her emotions bleed through. “Get back to the rover.”

There’s a pause. “ _Can’t climb_. _Can’t fly._ ”

“Your hardsuit has a jetpack, genius. Fire it up; it’ll clear the edge.”

The moron doesn’t even pull herself to a sitting position before deploying. Fortunately, Shuri’s mods include situational awareness software; the suit autocorrects before Collins smashes into the icy wall.

She almost slams into the rover instead, groans as she hits the ground. Monica reminds herself that going out there and throttling her would just be wasteful. “ _In_ the rover, not _on_ it,” she says, unable to keep the edge from her voice. “Time’s a-wastin’.”

Rising on unsteady feet, Collins stumbles to the hatch, which slides open at her approach, then barely takes two steps in before collapsing. Monica cranks up the heat and pressurization, then, when it’s safe, disengages the driver’s environmental systems and rushes to her side. The older Inhuman is freezing - frost clings to the ends of her hair, and her lips are blue.

Monica helps the woman sit up, runs an omni-tool scan. _Strained auricular nerve. High blood pressure. Light hypothermia._

The rage peaks - she tamps down the urge to give Collins a good, hard slap. She sticks to a snarled “ - kill yourself at your own time, Collins; not on my watch!”

Color starts trickling back to her cheeks. “Research requires risk,” she whispers.

Monica scoffs. “Tell me it was worth it, at least.”

After a moment, she nods.

“I know where the device is.”

* * *

####  **Med-Bay**

####  **Gagarin Station**

Isabelle had resigned herself to a medical examination, but flat out refuses to stay overnight for further observation, even though her head is pounding and she can feel Rhodey’s silent glare burning a hole in her forehead.

But she does have a briefing to give, so they all cluster around her in the med-bay, their faces comically stupefied after she drops the bomb. Monica, the one already in the know, is bristling against the wall, agitated for reasons far beyond Isabelle’s ill-advised trip into the cold.

Jane blinks first. “Is that... a euphemism?”

Isabelle resists the urge to sigh. “No, it’s a fact. That thing out there most definitely is _not a moon_.”

“How could you possibly know that?” Bruce asks.

“Because,” she snaps, “ - besides being hydrokinetic, I also have a _Ph.D. in Oceanography._ The thickest ice shelf back on Earth is five kilometers deep. I figured this could be a dozen, not more. But what I sensed was a depth of at least _hundreds_ of kilometers.”

She takes a deep breath to dull the throbbing in her brain. “And beneath that... no crust, no mantle, no core.”

“This confirms my scans,” Shuri says finally, looking intrigued and troubled in equal measures. “It’s not an ice shelf; it’s an ice _shell_. Hollow.” She hesitates. “A casing.”

“Casing?”

“We’ve been looking for a device. An enormous device, capable of redirecting Infinity-levels of energy. A device that our best sensors haven’t been able to detect - because the device isn’t _on_ Charon.”

“It _is_ Charon.”

* * *

####  **Personal Quarters**

Her brain is pounding hard enough to leak out of her ears. “Can you get me some ice?” she asks hoarsely. “Don’t want to risk conjuring right now.”

Rhodey stomps over to the mini-fridge, hands over a makeshift cold compress. Sinking into the bed, she presses the compress to the side of her face, sighing as it takes the edge of the pain.

She’s put this off long enough. “Well, go on then. Let me have it. You know you want to.”

“How magnanimous of you, Isabelle,” he drawls. She winces; he only calls her by her full name when he’s really pissed. “Help me fill in the missing blanks. What happened after you _went ashore_?”

Rhodey has never been one to become conveniently half-blind. Everyone had assumed that she’d strained her senses from _within_ the confines of the rover - which moron would attempt otherwise - neither she nor Rambeau had corrected that notion.

“Wasn’t that cold,” she says, and before he can call her out on the lie, she hastily adds, “ - but I misjudged my range. I... lost myself in the ice.”

There was no end to it. Casting her mind so deep that she hadn’t been able to find a way out. Rambeau’s inane chatter had been more comforting than useful. “Finally, I had to cut the connection abruptly.” Her mind, stretched to breaking point, had snapped back like a rubber band. “I don’t remember much after that.”

“Looked through your armor’s metabolic scans, Izzy. You blacked out for a few seconds.”

“Blacking out _does_ imply I don’t _remember a goddamn thing_ , Rhodes,” she says, unable to stop her tone from slipping into a warning. **_Back off._ ** **Please _._ **

He slams the shutters, sealing off the view of the alien moon. The gesture is ultimately futile, because the swathe of bone-white sheets on the bed is bright enough to mirror those hostile fields of ice perfectly.

“ _This_ is why I didn’t want you anywhere near this,” he grits out.

“You’ll keep pushing and pushing and _pushing_ until either _you_ break, or everyone else around you does. Just like _him_.”

He laughs hoarsely. “But then, I deserve it.”

Isabelle blinks, looks at him.

“Post-Snap, the backbone of my life? _Guilt_. I was so desperate to relieve it, I failed to save the things most precious to me.”

“Rhodey…”

He shudders out a breath. “I should’ve sent Nebula first, on Morag.”

Maybe she never left the ice. Charon’s eternal winter steals her breath all over again.

“Should’ve made sure she got home… even if I didn’t.”

Her throat is thick. They should’ve had this conversation _three years ago._ In her attempt to flee any reminder of her pain, she’d ignored everyone else’s. “You couldn’t have known what that would lead to. That wasn’t on you.”

He smiles as though he doesn’t believe her for an instant, nor does he appreciate her belated empathy. “I dealt with it, Izzy. On my own, because _you weren’t there_.”

He exhales. “I know you lost more than anyone else - but you’ve gotta understand… I lost him too.”

“I’m trying.”

“I _know_. But we could be trying together. That’s the point - the rings, our vows. Marriage is a deal,” and he swallows then, and pain lances through her as she realizes what’s he going to say next, “ - and you’re not keeping up your end of the bargain.”

She shakes her head, a tear trickling down her cheek. “... _I love you_ ,” she whispers.

It’s the wrong thing to say, so she tries again, “ - but I’m _drowning_.”

He stills, immediately understanding the significance of those words.

“Deeper every day.” The grief is as fresh as it was the day of the funeral. It’d always be that fresh. “I won’t pull you down with me.”

He sinks into the bed next to her, leans his head against hers. “I won’t mind helping you swim back up.”

She wants to grab onto the present tense, but she won’t tie him to her. He’s been patient long enough. “Neither of us will survive.”

“Then at least we go down together.” He kisses her then, rough but deep enough to make her feel as though she’s drowning in _him_. Their tears mix, creating a volatile mixture that burns through the ice that had overtaken her. “I’ve almost lost you thrice since you came back - Svartálfheim, Venice, and now this.”

He cups her face, forcing her to lock gazes with him. “I won’t survive another, Izzy.”

“ _We_ won’t _._ ”

* * *

###  **June 28th, 2026**

####  **Meeting Room**

Nick is familiar with obsessions. That unending, burning drive in his blood. For the most part, he keeps it leashed. But even his closest associates know to surrender when he’s in that feverish mood that precedes some reckless gambit.

So he’s a little thrown when greeted with incredulous expressions that silently judge his mental health.

“Do I look like I’m joking?” He glares at Jane Foster, who is, impressively, not that impressed. But then, she has never been cowed by his authority. “I’m not having a possible alien threat hanging out our window any longer than it’s already been there.”

“So your solution is to _break a moon?_ ” she demands. “What about the consequences? Pluto’s tidally locked to Charon, and it’s mutual! Even a minor disturbance to the orbit could cause a catastrophic chain reaction!”

“Isn’t that the kind of problem you’re here to fix?” He sighs. “Dr. Foster, the Mars discovery has the world on edge; no one is willing to brush it aside like they did after New York. Soon enough, I’m not gonna be the only one who wants to crack open that shell.”

“So,” he takes a deep, calming breath, which doesn’t work. “I ask again.”

“ _Can it be done?_ ”

* * *

###  **July 1st, 2026**

Three days of feverish calculations, fueled by caffeine and arguments. Three days of calibrating and upgrading the drones. Three days of Jane watching Monica sink into furious misery before she’s finally _had it._

She drags her into a quiet, unused lab when neither of them will be missed. “Alright, I’ve had enough,” Jane says, folding her arms across her chest. “You’ve been off your game for a while now. What gives?”

“You try stopping the runaway express that is Isabelle Collins…”

“Monica, you can smell bullshit a mile away, and Starks like to hide behind a whole lot of it. But you didn’t catch it. So. _What gives?_ ”

Despairing rage burns bright in her eyes. Jane suspects it’s the only thing that’s keeping her afloat these days. “ _… six minutes,_ ” Monica snarls.

“What?”

“Six minutes to reach Charon at FTL. I could do a trip ‘round the solar system in an _hour_.” Her nostrils flare. “You know how long it took to build the Gagarin?”

She’s starting to have an inkling of where this is going. "Thirteen years."

"Thirteen ye…,” Monica breaks off. Golden light coalesces at her tight fist. “Chief called it the _‘pinnacle of humanity’s reach’_ .” She punches the wall hard. “ _Eezo -_ ,” she spits, “ - made my life’s work redundant within a _year_ of its construction.”

She laughs hoarsely. “Can’t even study the _stars_ \- Sol’s too young and even with FTL, it’ll take us _decades_ to reach the nearest relevant system! And without light… _I’m_ redundant, too.”

Jane shuts her eyes.

“All our billionaire backers are flat broke, you know? Funding was never even on the radar before I screwed up.” Her smile is joyless. “Even the chief knows eezo’s left me behind _centuries_.”

You’re not the only one, Jane wants to shout. She’s an astrophysicist who has had her understanding of the universe completely upended. But Darcy’s rubbed off on her - so she recognizes that what Monica needs is some sense knocked into her stupid. “Self-pity is not a good look on you.”

Her eyes burn molten gold. “How dare you.”

“No, how dare _you_.” Jane would be burning too, if she could. “Pinnacle of humanity’s reach, not _Rambeau’s!_ This isn’t where you peak! Gagarin’s redundant? But not what you _do_ here! As for the stars…”

She exhales. “Monica. You’re a brilliant engineer. But that’s what you are - an _engineer_. To investigate the stars, you need an _astrophysicist_.”

Monica’s mouth opens in an ‘O’, as though the thought hasn’t occurred to her this whole year. Jane internally rolls her eyes - is this what Darcy had felt, every time _she_ had sprouted crippling insecurity?

“Enough wallowing, Rambeau. We’ve got work to do.”

* * *

####  **Personal Quarters**

Isabelle watches her husband pack his bags with militaristic efficiency. “Thought you were gonna stick it out till the end of this thing.”

“Well, we didn’t exactly anticipate having to _break open a moon_ ,” he replies absently. “No matter what Fury says, this isn’t a scenario where asking for forgiveness instead of permission is going to cut it. The Alliance needs to be told in person.”

“I could come with.”

He must’ve heard the suppressed guilt in her voice, the fear even, because he pauses in the middle of neatly folding his socks to look at her softly. “You haven’t been sleeping.”

It’s not a question.

“Took me a while to get it. While your nightmares jolt you awake, stuff like that,” and he gestures vaguely towards the moon-that-is-not-a-moon, “ - the unknowable and the unexplainable… they _keep_ you awake.”

He shakes his head. “I won’t get in the way of that.”

He’s right, as always. But - “I’m tired,” she admits finally. “It’s always… the next mission. The next fight. The next _mystery to solve_. I still wanna know what’s out there… but I also wish I could just.” She gestures helplessly. “ _Stop_.”

It’s the first time in a long time that she’s even approached requesting help, and a large part of her wants to retreat behind her walls again, but she shoves it down deep.

“You _will_. There’ll be a line you won’t want to cross,” he says, with the assurance of someone who’s been there many, many times. “And as for the dreams…”

He squeezes her hand. “ _Talk_ to someone. Doesn’t have to be me. Or it’ll eat you alive.”

"Kind of a unique circumstance, Rhodey." **_How could she possibly explain this?_ **

"You don't need someone who shares your experience, or your problems. You just need someone who has their own.”

“Someone who feels _just as alone._ "

* * *

###  **July 2nd, 2026**

####  **Main Lab**

Shuri clears her throat. “While we wait for the official directive, more research into the device itself is required.”

“What do we have?” Monica asks.

“Physical properties are difficult to measure; the device has been... _enhanced_ , somehow, by the energy of the Gauntlet. Bruce, you have conducted the most experiments on the Stones.”

"Unfortunately," he nods. "You want me to model the effects of their distortion to isolate any emissions solely from the device."

She nods. "Jane, coordinate with him but narrow your focus to dark energy. Your expertise with interdimensional breaches could be useful.”

Jane winces, shifts a little so the sight of the moon is shunted to the edges of her vision. Once is chance, two is a coincidence, she reminds herself.

"Monica, find out what the device actually _does_ , besides transmitting massive amounts of energy. Wong, continue with your mystical investigation. Jane - being the foremost link between magic and science - will be working with him as well.”

“I’m gonna conduct a thorough material analysis."

Shuri’s gaze is alert. "We’re not working in isolation - every discovery, no matter how seemingly insignificant, might be important to someone else.”

“Get to work."

* * *

Personalization is not really something they were aiming for, or even something they had time for, but it seems to have crept up in their workspaces anyway, driving home their uniqueness more than their preferences.

Bruce takes up the most room, his instruments enlarged, the tint of his towering holographic interface an unironical green. Monica has holed herself in the brightly-lit tech lab.

Shuri’s workstation is alien in the truest sense of the word; her technology is so completely different from anything they’ve ever seen, yet somehow easily integrates with the familiar. She gestures expansively, constantly muttering even without an audience.

Jane, however, has gotten far too used to the feel of her gadgets in her hands, so her space is the smallest; cluttered with a variety of hand-held devices that the Princess had scoffed at good-naturedly, then turned around and calibrated to a degree Jane could never have achieved by herself.

“Dark energy projection rates continue to climb far beyond initial calculations. Consistent with an inactive eezo core, though,” she tells Bruce. “Anything on your end?”

In response, he forwards his own data, which is in sharp contrast to her own - a flatline graph stretching out to eternity - but as equally alarming to those who share a love for the absolute, unchanging laws of nature. “We thought it was because our scans couldn’t penetrate that ice. But the metal is _cold_ , in more than one sense of the term.”

“Did you try looking for gamma?”

He gives her a droll look, as though to say - **_look who you are talking to_**. It’s particularly impressive in his massive face; she winces as the words linger awkwardly between them. “Gamma, UV, IR, x-ray… the entire EM spectrum - nada.”

“Whatever this device is - it doesn’t emit anything; no heat, no radiation. Nothing to distinguish it from deep space. Like I said, _cold_.”

She struggles to blurt ‘impossible’ in reply. That’s not a word thrown around lightly post-Decimation. “Maybe it’ll be different once we activate it to hundred-percent functionality.”

“Only in terms of the dark energy manipulated by the core.” Static flickers across his holograms as he throws up his hands. “I’m old, Jane,” he sighs. “Set in my ways. I’m not particularly fond of theoretical concepts that break the laws of thermodynamics.”

She rubs at her forehead hard. Cold objects shouldn’t be possible, yet here they are. Something about the concept seems oddly familiar, gnawing at the back of her mind. She reaches for that thought, but it slips away from her, sinking deeper into the quicksand where all forgotten memories go. “Well, you can’t actually _will_ it to come up with favorable readings.”

“You have a better idea?”

“What about a better use of your time?” She minimizes all the windows, pulls up the archives. “I need a new pair of eyes. I was about to run a comparison analysis between my projections and the energy bursts Monica’s scanners recorded aboard the Peak. Let’s exchange assignments.”

“What are you gonna do?”

“Go looking for my absent muse.”

* * *

####  **Observation Lounge**

Jane wasn’t expecting the lounge to be occupied. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t know... didn’t you get labspace?”

Wong rises smoothly and pats himself down. “I hardly require one. But I do prefer my meditation space to be more open than my quarters. Would you like some tea?”

She shrugs, settles on the couch when Wong waves away her offer of help. The aroma wafts upwards in swirling patterns. Something about it settles her insides, smooths away her worries. “Was your meditation useful?”

“Perhaps,” he shrugs, sipping his tea. “I’ve been investigating the universal ley lines of mystical energy - the paths through which magic travels. Strangely, some of them converge on this device - and presumably, all the other devices in the network.”

“What does that mean?”

“The device did not just redirect the Gauntlet energy, it _absorbed_ some of it. Magic made it stronger. An inherent property of the metal itself, I suspect.”

The quicksand stirs. She resolutely stays away. “Or the Stones.”

Something flickers behind his eyes. “An interesting hypothesis. There’s a saying - _‘That which is touched by the Stones is forevermore changed by the Stones.’_ Even when destroyed, there’s evidence that they’ve left traces of themselves.”

In hindsight, she probably should’ve kept her mouth shut. She wonders if the tea’s been laced, and then wonders if he’d been waiting for her here, in this semi-regular haunt of hers. Then she decides she doesn’t really care. “Hypothetically... could they have, I don’t know, left traces… in _people_?”

His steady, unblinking gaze feels like being under a spotlight. “You are asking after Dr. Selvig.”

She exhales in a rush. He drowns it out by loudly, rudely, _deliberately_ slurping at his tea.

She feels a sudden wave of affection for the sorcerer. “Yeah,” she lies, taking the out. “Erik was never the same, after Loki’s Sceptre.”

Wong hums. “The Mind Stone is the very embodiment of intellect and information. I believe it did little more than open his mind to new possibilities. To knowledge he’d have never otherwise accessed.”

She nods, her mind rapidly deconstructing and modifying his words to suit her own needs.

“But if you see him again, caution him,” he continues. “The Stones very rarely had a positive impact on the universe.”

“It is best not to advertise the fact that he bears their remnants.”

* * *

###  **July 3rd, 2026**

####  **Galley**

The galley is where the fatigued science team usually gathers in the wee hours of the morning - after having spent the night researching and experimenting - comparing notes and arriving at conclusions.

Tonight, however, Jane encounters someone unexpected. She arches an eyebrow at Isabelle Collins, who’s bleary-eyed and clutching at a mug of coffee.

“Scientists don’t have a monopoly on insomnia,” Izzy explains. “Graveyard shift, my quarters overlook Charon. Not a moment I want to revisit.”

“How are you?”

“Recovering,” she admits, and Jane knows she only does so because the exhaustion from having her diurnal rhythm knocked off-course has lowered her inhibitions. “Still, not the worst world to be stuck on.”

She glances at her sideways. “But then - you know all about the Dark World. Heard I have you to thank for getting me out of there.”

“That was mostly Erik,” Jane tries, busying herself with fiddling with the coffee maker. An attempt at deflection - one that’s half-hearted, because, wait for it -

“Both of you, then. You’ve been hunting breaches, haven’t you? Any tips on how to avoid tumbling into more of those?” She smiles. “Maybe a breach-detector device?”

\- three times’ a pattern. Or enemy action, Ian Fleming would say.

It’s just banter from a woman who’d rather not recall that which had compelled her to leave her quarters to hide out here in the dead of night.

But Jane’s not firing on all cylinders either. “There’s no device,” she blurts. “There never was.”

“But how do you...?”

Wong had warned her, but she’s bursting at the seams trying to hold this in.

“It’s _me_ ,” Jane says. “I can _sense_ them. Specifically, the dark energy that pours out whenever a breach is formed.”

Izzy stiffens, her eyes sharpening into a question. The bags beneath look even more pronounced.

“The Aether,” Jane explains. “Reality is shaped by dark energy, and the Stone... left something of itself behind when it left my body.” She swallows. “An awareness that is… stronger now that it's been destroyed. Eezo certainly doesn’t help.”

She's afraid to look over, to see Izzy's reaction. It's a miracle she's not screaming, after everything the Stones have stolen from her. But then, Izzy's fury has always burned cold.

Jane still can't bring herself to regret it. There's something freeing about saying it out loud.

A deep sigh. "I have nightmares about the time I was dead," Izzy admits finally.

Jane almost bursts into tears. Darcy had taught her that comparison of vulnerabilities is the lowest form of empathy. But Izzy's words don't elevate one pain over another. They _equalize_ both. "That _is_ much worse," she laughs wetly.

"I don't know. At least _I_ have them only at night."

“And _I_ go crazy only around breaches…”

They downplay their issues well into the morning.

* * *

###  **July 5th, 2026**

####  **Research Hub**

All the final preparations are over with. All the calculations made, all the permissions obtained. They’re just waiting for Shuri’s cue.

Jane’s working her way through the archives when Monica emerges from her overly-bright tech lab and makes a beeline for her. “Oh, good,” she chirps, “ - I was just about to call you. I have doubts.”

Jane heaves an internal sigh of relief. Things had been awkward since her admittedly harsh talking-to, and Monica had vacillated between angry gloom and mania for a while before settling into something approaching determination. “Engineering isn’t really my area of expertise…”

“No, not that,” Monica waves a hand impatiently. “I went through the Foster theory on Einstein-Rosen Bridges - _fascinating_ stuff, by the way - but I don’t really get the difference between the Bifrost and normal wormholes.”

“What’s that got to do with…?”

“Humor me.”

She shrugs, activates the projector table. Unlike traditional holo-workstations, this runs on vibranium sand tech generously loaned by Wakanda. Besides Shuri, Jane has had the best luck manipulating it so far; it’s incredibly intuitive, almost like building sandcastles at the beach. Running her fingers through the sand, she asks, “ - what’s your experience with wormholes?”

“The Universal Neural Teleportation Network,” is the prompt reply. “A network of wormholes, limited only by the number of jumps one can take at a time. Not even the Skrulls know who built it - been there longer than any written history.”

Jane feels a stab of professional envy. Oh, the data she’d be able to gather with just one jump alone could win her another Nobel Prize. “Think I can fill in some of the blanks. Are they mapped out?”

In response, Monica raises her arms. Golden threads trickle through Monica’s veins like luminous braiding, knotting at the tips of her fingers. A projection of the cosmos branches outward, washing the room with light. Specific locations are highlighted with golden rings; the Network’s wormholes.

Monica’s eyes are bright. “I memorized them. Thought it might come in handy.”

“Impressive,” Jane smiles. “ _My turn._ ”

The sand is cool and smooth as she molds it into the familiar form of a gnarly ash tree. Over the years, her interest in this has never waned, just oscillated from obsessive hobby to legitimate scientific interest. “I’ve found that real-life borderline fringe physics often mirrors ancient myths - specifically Norse.”

Monica looks skeptical. “You can’t possibly be serious.”

She ignores her. “In Norse legends, _Yggdrasil_ is the depiction of the entire universe,” she says, detailing the trunk perhaps a little more than strictly necessary. “A unique constellation not limited to any one galaxy. Each of its main branches connects to a different galactic supercluster, then fork to different solar systems.”

Splitting the aforementioned branches from the tree, she weaves them through the wormholes on Monica’s map, like threading the eye of a needle, only exponentially simpler.

“I propose the Neural Network wormholes tap into Yggdrasil’s branches, moving through existing pathways in the universe,” she traces a branch with her finger, demonstrating how it connects to others of its kind, “ - allowing one to travel almost instantaneously across space.”

“There’s no proof,” Monica grumbles, eyeing the mythical tree suspiciously. As though it somehow offends her modern sensibilities to find even a kernel of scientific truth in legends. Erik had been the same once.

“Not what I’m here for, anyway. _Limitation_ is the key.” Jane adds the final touch - the barest hint of strong, deep-seated roots disappearing into the projector table.

She’d always wondered about the cosmic reality that the roots represent; Thor had gone white the one and only time she’d asked.

She takes a step back, examining her handiwork. Inactive, the sand takes on a concrete-like consistency.

The World Tree looms over them, its branches painted in the gold of Monica’s light. The sight brings a lump to her throat, reminding her of the first time she’d seen a representation of Yggdrasil.

The digital sketch Thor had once drawn for her. Jane doesn’t look too closely as to the reasons behind her holding on to the original all these years. It still lies in her bedside drawer back home, not lost, never forgotten.

The quicksand stirs again, the memory at the tip of her tongue, but she doesn’t poke at it. It’ll come to her, or it won’t. “Do you have the Nine Realms mapped out?”

A rainbow-hued set of delicate spheres materialize on the map. Asgard is represented by a flat asteroid. “The Bifrost,” Jane explains, “ - just like all other Einstein-Rosen bridges, _punches a hole through space-time_. But, while powerful, it could _only_ connect to the Nine Realms located in _nine_ _separate galaxies_ ,” she gestures to the spheres, “ - so that’s all the Asgardians concerned themselves.”

“While the Universal Neural Teleportation Network can connect anywhere, but can’t be used too often successively,” Monica finishes. “ _Limitation_.”

Jane straightens. She recognizes that tone. “What’s this really about?”

With a swift gesture, Monica banishes their creations. The sand structure collapses, individual particles sinking back onto the projector table. Above, the map dissolves into a swirl of colors, reemerging into a projection of the one thing Jane’s somehow supposed to investigate without making it too obvious that just looking at the damn thing makes nausea churn in her gut.

“Tentative designation: _Phase Gate_ ,” Monica says, grimacing. “Shuri’s idea; but she already got to coin eezo and we need a better alternative.” She zooms into Charon. “There’s evidence of an inactive core, a massive one.”

Jane nods. “Yes, the device is basically a huge mass effect engine able to manipulate massive amounts of dark energy.” An understatement; her estimates had abandoned ‘off the charts’ several days ago.

An image of the galaxy comes up next, red lines springing up between points across the spiral. “And we know that the Stones activated it for a brief moment, dispersing energy across the Milky Way?”

“Yeah…” Jane’s brilliant mind connects the dots without prompting. Her heart skips a beat. “But eezo is also able to manipulate mass, which means this network can’t just disperse energy… but _matter_.”

“If I’m right, each gate connects to another one in the network, creating a _mass-free_ corridor. A _bridge_ … to whatever’s on the other side.”

“It’s a transit device. Like a wormhole.”

Monica shakes her head. “This is more elegant. Wormholes break reality, these… _mass relays_ ,” her eyes brighten for a moment, and Jane knows she’s going to do whatever it takes to get the term approved, “ - _bend_ it. A network of them, allowing interstellar travel, but just _within_ the Milky Way. _There’s_ your limitation.”

“I’ve mapped them out,” she says, “but there’s no way to know which one Charon connects to.” Golden light trickles back into Monica’s veins, plunging the hub into darkness. “Don’t suppose you could call Thor? Would like to conduct some tests on that Stormbreaker of his.”

Jane stills. Goosebumps slide along the back of her neck. “What did you just say?” she whispers.

Monica squints at her. “Stormbreaker? That big, mighty ax - capable of summoning Einstein-Rosen Bridges at will?” She shakes her head. “Man, I thought that hammer was impressive - what kind of a metal is capable of sustaining that much lightning…?”

**_Stormbreaker._ ** **Hammer.**

The quicksand stirs violently, like a vortex, but she’s grabbed onto the memory now, and she’s _not letting go._ Her head spins as she staggers her way into the main lab, the roaring in her ears drowning out her friend’s exclamation. “I need to… _Shuri_.”

The Princess - not someone who is easily disturbed when in the middle of research - must’ve heard something in her tone, because she looks up, her petite features morphing into concern. “What is it?”

Jane attempts to compose herself, if for no other reason than rearranging her scattered thoughts. “What did you find from the structural and compositional analysis?”

Shuri brings up her data. “It’s incredibly resilient. Non-sparking, highly immalleable, unknown ductility. I don’t want to imagine the energy it would take to forge this metal…”

“Elaborate on the resilience.”

Shuri blinks. “Well, uh… the atomic structure is _locked_ in place by a… _quantum shield_ that makes it nearly impervious to damage. Pretty sure it could survive a _supernova_. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

**_Magic made it stronger. An inherent property of the metal itself, I suspect._ **

Jane nods mutely, taking a step backward. Then another. Then another, until she feels the comforting edge of her own workspace. “But I have,” she whispers, recalling the data S.H.I.E.L.D. had sent over as an apology gift after the event with the Destroyer.

Back then, she’d been trying to flee the reality of Thor’s abandonment, so she’d buried it deep within her personal database, but some conclusions had latched themselves onto her brain nevertheless. She’d attributed those scans to unknown energies, having conveniently forgotten her own mantra on the connection between magic and science.

The memory of the hammer blooms in her mind, mighty and forceful. The delicately carved, looping knots on the chamfered edges of the head, and the triquetra to the side, representing Odin’s mandate on worthiness.

_Mjolnir_.

As if on cue, the shutters open, revealing the backdrop of Charon against the dark infinity of space. _Oh_ , Jane thinks, heart stuttering in her chest. Shuri must have been initializing the project when she’d barged in.

As she watches, a tremor sweeps across the icy facade; an entire moon shuddering in fear. The cracks are faint at this distance, but spread rapidly across the surface, forking under the pressure of Shuri’s pulse emitters.

Slowly, as though unwilling to break free, huge chunks of glaciers split from the whole. They tumble through space for brief moments before finally escaping Charon’s feeble gravity.

An hour flies by as she stares at the spectacular cataclysm which feels like a metaphor, or perhaps a prophecy, of her life.

An egg hatching with cracks spreading all over it.

And inside the egg…

At first, she sees nothing. But then -

Her immediate impression is of a gigantic tuning fork - two long, curved arms, arching around a pair of gyroscopic rings. A lifeless device whose contours carve out the starry expanse of space, finally liberated from its camouflage of ice.

Changing the face of the Sol System forever.

* * *

####  **Meeting Room**

The realization that this convergence of the two universes is not just limited to the Infinity Stones drops like an anvil over the group. “ _What?_ ”

“Thor called it _Uru_ ,” Jane explains. “A metal, forged in the heart of a neutron star - Nidavellir, the home of the dwarves, and one of the Nine Realms of Yggdrasil.”

Isabelle blinks. “You think the Asgardians built this?” She points to the recently uncovered device.

“That ice hasn’t been disturbed for _fifty thousand years_ , Izzy,” Jane replies. “The entirety of Asgardian civilization isn’t even half that long.”

“Another interesting coincidence to think about,” Bruce continues. “Eezo is generated when a planet is affected by a star going supernova. Said star is either destroyed completely or collapses into a _neutron star_.”

“Were the Asgardians _aware_ of all of this - eezo, the Prothean ruins, these relays?” Fury asks, scowling at the thought of not having interrogated the remnants of the species that have even now made their home in Tønsberg, Norway.

“They didn’t have to be - not with the Bifrost.”

“Has _anyone_ heard of this before?”

Talos shakes his head. “This is new for us. We were too busy fighting a losing war to concern ourselves with the Milky Way. I’ve been trying to connect to the Neural Network, reach out to my spies in Andromeda for any intel they might have… but it’s blocked. Something has cut us off. Probably the Kree,” Talos grouses.

Wong shifts uncomfortably. “The Masters of the Mystic Arts have long since been aware of Uru,” he admits. “I have never seen it in person, which is why I did not immediately place its unique mystical properties.”

He clears his throat. “Uru has a natural affinity for magic. Not only is it easy to enchant, but it also absorbs magic like a sponge, making it more durable. The energies it is unable to absorb, it redirects - like Mjolnir did with Thor’s lightning.”

“And like the Charon relay did with the combined juice of six Infinity Stones.” Fury exhales explosively.

“By all accounts, the youngest civilization to know about these might’ve been the Protheans, who probably built them,” Shuri says into the silence. “With further translations of the Archives, I’m sure I can find a way to reactivate them.”

Isabelle stirs in her seat. There’s a realization building in her mind, slow because she’s still recovering, but nevertheless reaching its apex. “You… called it a corridor. Which makes this… a doorway. To the other end of space.”

Monica grimaces at the oversimplification but nods. She brings up the relay, zooms in. “See those gyroscopic rings enclosing the inactive core? Helps in stabilizing navigational systems in the dead of space…”

But Isabelle’s not listening anymore. Her eyes are drawn to Fury, who is the palest she’s ever seen him. He’s recognized those words too, the specific way she’d phrased them.

Because they’d both been there at the beginning, when interfering with alien technology had plunged them into a life-altering war. When Clint Barton had proven himself to be as intelligent as Erik Selvig, much to their detriment.

**_If there was any tampering, sir, it wasn't at this end._ **

**_At this end?_ **

**_Yeah, the cube is a doorway to the other end of space right?_ **

**_Doors_ ** **open from both sides.**

* * *

###  **July 7th, 2026**

####  **Space Dock**

They’re waiting on Rhodes to bring the _Albatross_ back from Earth. Jane is re-checking her belongings when Monica steps next to her. “I hope you don’t have any plans, because you’re going to be my assistant for the next few years.”

Jane glances at her sideways. She’s seen a lot of sides of her friend, but the look Monica’s sporting right now usually precedes Jane being dragged into a lot of dangerous situations. _Exciting_ , yes, but dangerous. “I’m older than you,” she points out. “If anything, you’d be _my_ assistant.”

She really shouldn’t be encouraging her, but damn if the prospect of more scientific expeditions isn’t thrilling. The initial shock of the truth behind the relays had given away to an explosion of possibilities. “What are you planning?”

“Chief’s agreed - I’m piloting the first ship through the relay. Set up some bases around stars, take some readings. Thing is,” Monica sighs, “ - you were right; I was going about this all wrong.”

Jane arches an eyebrow.

She hesitates, then steels herself. “Just science isn’t gonna cut it. The connection between relays and Uru made me realize… the answers might be found in old Norse mythos, too.”

A broad smile pulls at her lips. “Why, Monica… have I successfully _converted_ you?”

Monica scowls. “Save it. There’s no guarantee. Science always rules.”

Unable to argue with that, Jane shrugs. The _Albatross_ jumps into view, its shadow a speck against the unearthly sheen of the Charon relay.

“And _magic is just science we don’t understand yet._ ”

* * *

####  **The Peak VII**

Isabelle feels Fury’s gaze as she goes through the proposal. Her fingers brush through the hologram of the red-and-white logo. _“Interplanetary Combatives Training._ Why me?”

“I need you for what you were always trained for,” he replies, “ - be a _bridge to whatever’s on the other side._ ”

She sighs, swipes away the holo. “Nick…”

“With the Tesseract, we were caught off-guard. Never again.” He slashes a hand through the air. “We know how to work this; we need to send someone through before the other end starts getting any ideas.”

Collins presses trembling fingers to her brow. “I’m not going to be a part of that. _This_ is how it begins, and I’m not… I can’t do this again.”

“ _This_ is what you signed up for.”

“ _No_. I’m a _S.H.I.E.L.D._ agent - _Phil Coulson_ is my superior officer.”

“Not for long; if I’m reading the winds right,” he sighs. “You have somewhere better to be?”

“Yeah,” she bites out. “ _Home_. It’s time I get back to my family - Aquamarine’s had a good enough run.”

He snorts. “Will that satisfy you?”

“More than,” she says and finds that she absolutely means it. She aches to know them, to know these new versions of them that she hadn’t wanted to learn earlier, that she hadn’t wanted to _taint_ earlier.

Rhodey’s confession had shaken something loose inside her. Forced her in front of a mirror, made her confront what she has become, how far she has drifted since the Blip, if she hasn’t even bothered to find out her husband’s pain. How many more has she been ignoring?

The only mysteries she needs to solve are the ones that involve her family.

He squeezes the bridge of his nose, then pushes an OSD across the desk. “Let me know if you change your mind.”

\-----

Long after Collins is gone, Nick is absently thumbing at the holo-projector when Hill comes up from behind him. “You’re still holding out hope?” Her voice is incredulous.

“She’s so close. She just needs one last push.”

“She won’t let you manipulate her into making it personal again, Nick.”

The hologram pops up, displaying a brilliantly bold _N7_ logo against a dark background.

“Something tells me I won’t have to.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** MCU Context **
> 
> **Remnants of Infinity Stones:** This is actually evident in canon. Selvig himself admitted that the Mind Stone changed him. It’s inconceivable to think that after absorbing one of the most volatile Stones in existence, it left no lasting impact on Jane Foster. 
> 
> I like to think the Stones ‘did not go gently into that good night.’
> 
> This is a super important plot point.
> 
> **Monica Rambeau:** First appearance of Monica Rambeau in WandaVision! She’s bold, brilliant, and beautiful! 
> 
> My version, obviously, is very different. Inhuman, less self-assured (as evidenced by this chapter). She’ll grow into her full potential and that journey is what I’m interested in exploring. 
> 
> I expanded on her light-bending gifts in this chapter. Like Collins, she can call upon light rays from external sources, but not generate them. She can bend them, using them to see around corners if she so wishes. She is capable of holographic projections, invisibility etc.
> 
> She is hesitant to use them offensively because of the warnings drilled into her by the Skrulls. 
> 
> ** Marvel Comics Context **
> 
> **Uru** The mystical metal ore capable of storing energy, especially magic. In ME canon, it is unknown which metal was used to create the mass relays. So I decided to add another element of convergence between these two universes. 
> 
> The lore fits. Both Uru and the mass relays are enormously resilient, and I’m pretty sure whatever canonical metal it was in ME would’ve required extreme methods to forge it. Why not the heart of a neutron star?
> 
> Another convergence is the connection between eezo and neutron stars. 
> 
> Honestly, I don’t come up with this. This is all _just there_ , ripe for the taking. Every time I stumble across stuff like this, I laugh like a maniac.
> 
> ** Mass Effect Context **
> 
> **Systems Alliance:** Yeah, that ‘alliance’ Rhodey was talking about between the military and S.H.I.E.L.D. is _the Systems Alliance_ , the representative body of Earth and human colonies. 
> 
> **Alec Ryder:** Father of the protagonist in Mass Effect: Andromeda. Canonical information is woefully lacking, so I’m planning on creating a backstory for him.
> 
> I wasn’t gonna have ME:A involved at all, but then I realized - the Kree and Skrulls come from Andromeda. So maybe I can bridge those two universes as well. Not in any great detail - I’m limiting myself to the Milky Way - but just enough.
> 
> **PSV Albatross:** A corvette - a small, ten-man craft. There’s no naming convention given in the wiki, so I’m naming them after large seabirds.
> 
> **Charon:** It was absolutely thrilling to use Charon as the collision point between universes. It is the first of many answers to the question that may have occurred to you - how did the Snap affect the Mass Effect universe? 
> 
> The Gauntlet energy traveling through the mass relay network echoes another instance of something similar happening at the very controversial ending of Mass Effect 3. A long way from here.
> 
> **’Cold’ Objects:** In canon, the relays are ‘cold; they don’t emit heat or radiation, unlike starships, making them difficult to find if their position changes. The eezo core, of course, emits dark energy, and also is capable of disseminating other forms of energy.
> 
> **Wormholes, Bifrost and Relays:** Yet another point of convergence. Bifrost is a sort of wormhole, and, this isn’t canon, but I think it can connect only to the Nine Realms. 
> 
> The Universal Neural Teleportation Network is a plot device using in GotG Vol 2. A network of wormholes. I linked them with Norse Mythology, because I like to find connections between truly disparate elements.
> 
> Mass relays are a whole different ballgame. And I _loved_ comparing the Charon relay to the Tesseract. A blue glowing thing acting as an interstellar gateway? The parallels were shoving themselves at me.
> 
> Ooh, and ‘phase gate’ is a shout out to the creators’ original name for the relays. 
> 
> **Interplanetary Combatives Training:** aka _N7 training_. Boy, have I been waiting for this! 
> 
> To non-fans, N7 is a vocational code in the System Alliance military. ‘N’ denotes special forces. There are six levels of horrifically grueling training; if you manage to complete all six, you’ll be an _N7_.
> 
> There is little shame in failing an N course - the training is so extreme that even qualifying for N1 elevates an officer to a position of respect.
> 
> It’s why I involved Alec Ryder as well; another N7 graduate.
> 
> Maybe I should’ve posted this chapter on November 7th - would’ve been brilliant. Oh, well. 
> 
> **OSD:** Optical Storage Device - a small, portable data storage unit, like a CD or a USB.


End file.
